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From AUSTRIA

Introducing:
Bernhard Baumgartner

Located at the heart of Europe Austria has been the center of a multi ethnic melting pot that included millions of people.  

For over 600 years the Austrian Empire has extended its boundaries into Italy, Germany, France, Switzerland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Yugoslavia, and Poland. It is not surprising therefore that Austrian cuisine is the culinary expression of a people who for many centuries have exchanged culinary knowledge and experience with almost everyone in Europe and the East.

Austrian food resembles today a small federation where nine regions, or Bundeslander, are influenced in a different way by their geography and the proximity with border countries. Austrian cuisine has sometimes German similarities while other areas reflects ties with the eastern cooking or may have a Mediterranean tone with herbs and vegetables.

Tirolean dishes are rich with a tradition of trading with Italy and include the famous “speck”, a very popular smoked cured ham.

Vienna’s cuisine is distinctive and international. Viennese dishes, shaped for the most influential European monarchy, have a unique elegance and adopted many international ingredients. Viennese cooking includes "Wiener Schnitzel" (breaded veal which has its Italian version in Milan, with the name "Cotoletta alla Milanese"), Parmesanschoeberlsuppe" (broth with soufflé dumplings flavored with Parmigiano cheese), and of course, the famous Sacher Torte (chocolate glazed layer cake filled with apricot jam).

But, what is the most typical Austrian dish? Bernhard has no hesitation: Knoedel potato dumplings! You have to read Bernhard’s colorful article “Why Austrians eat Knoedel (dumpling) so often” for his explanation.  

Bernhard is a very skilled chef and he promotes on his website the traditional values of Austrian cuisine. We are honored to host him as our guest cook with his recipe for Wurstknoedel (dumplings stuffed with smoked meat) and the sweet variation Zwetschgenknoedel (dumplings stuffed with plums). Enjoy!

Wurstknoedel
Potato Dumplings
Stuffed with Smoked Meat

Zwetschgenknoedel
Potato Dumplings
Stuffed with Plums

Potato dumplings can be served just plain without filling, to come with saucy dishes, with roast pork and traditionally with roast goose. But one of Austria’s food specialties is to fill the dumpling with bacon, or with so called Grammeln or with minced smoked meat. This is what I cook today, potato dumpling stuffed with minced smoked meat (Wurstknoedel), and as dessert I present another potato dumpling, this filled with a plum (Zwetschgenknoedel). Also apricot is a very often used fruit to stuff potato dumplings with.

for the Wurstknoedel (non sweet)
6 oz (180 gr) smoked meat
3 oz (90 gr) celery root
3 oz (90 gr) leek
salt and pepper
parsley
oil
flour to work with

for Zwetschgenknoedel (sweet)
8 plums (or 4 bigger ones)
2 oz (60 gr) butter (unsalted)
4 oz (120 gr) breadcrumbs
cinnamon
sugar
powdered sugar

for the dough
1 lb potatoes mealy, high starch
2 eggs
10 oz (300 gr) all purpose flour
salt
flour to work with

A recipe about Austrian food is almost always a recipe about food from one of Austria’s neighboring countries. Potato dough is a gift from the Bohemian Cuisine, left in Austrian cookbooks when Austria was a big empire. The potato itself is a very commonly used vegetable, but with eggs and flour becomes such a delicious thing: You can make hundreds of different dishes with it.
You can find an article about Austrians and the potato here at bernhards.at.
Potato dough enriches your menu and its ingredients are very affordable. Usually potato dumplings are used for poppy seed noodles, other potato noodles, but very often stuffed with fruit, minced smoked meats, raw green bacon and more.

preparing the potato dough  

3. Add flour and eggs
Now salt it a bit and add flour and eggs at once, work it in, so all three ingredients emulsify as good as possible by stirring and kneading as little as possible. You might need a whole lot more flour than expected that depends a lot on the eggs and the remaining water in the potatoes.
It is very important that you don’t stir and knead too much. Look at the photo and see how unready my dough looks. That’s OK; you give it the finish when you form the dumpling or the noodle you are up to make.

What else is there to say?
It took me some time practicing and try outs, to discover my personal best dough experience. Be sure, that every time I make potato dough I will think of my readers, and find out what else there is to say about cooking potato dough.

1. Wash, peel and cook
Wash and peel the potatoes, and cut in little pieces, so they don’t have to cook too long. Put them to heat, and boil until potatoes are well cooked. Drain and let stand for 5 minutes, so much of the humidity can vanish, important is that there is no liquid left, make sure all liquid, water can run off.  

2. Mash and cool
Now you mash the potatoes as long as they are still hot, on the photos you can see that I did that with a fork. I do that for two good reasons.
1) I just love it, when there are little potato parts left in the dough and that would not occur if mashed properly.
2) I want you to try it out, cook my recipe, and make potato dough yourself because you going to love it, and now you can not say, oh I don’t have the proper utility to mash potatoes.
After mashing, however you did it, let cool down, best is, to cover, fridge, and proceed the next day, but it also works on same day, just let it really cool down.

Serving the dumplings

In Austria Wurstknoedel and all stuffed non-sweet potato dumplings are served with gravy and usually come with Sauerkraut or green salads. Serve non-sweet dumplings on gravy and with Sauerkraut or green leaves.

Toss fruit dumplings in the prepared hot sweet breadcrumbs, put one or two spoonful of crumbs on top of the dumpling and dust with powdered sugar.

preparing the fillings

Cut celery, leeks and meat in very small dice, or mince it. Fry ingredients slightly in a pan. Season with salt, pepper, little garlic and fresh parsley. Cover this and put in the fridge. After 30 minutes start to form little balls of the filling. When finished put this little balls in the freezer, what makes it easier to coat them with dough later.

Wash plums, open them and get rid of the stone. Try your plums, if they are too sour, place a bit of sugar instead of the stone. If you only have big plums, part them and use only one half of a plum, like I did when cooking this recipe.

stuffing the dumplings
Now take a handful of the crumbly potato dough. Squeeze and press it and start to flatten it.

When you have formed a small bowl, place one of the meatballs inside and start to coat it with dough, close all openings and squeeze and press the dumpling, to make come out all of the remaining air. If there is only a small air chamber inside the dumpling, it will widen when being cooked and make the dumpling brake.

For making the sweet dumplings with plum or apricot or even strawberry you proceed just like above.

cooking the dumplings

When water boils strongly, add dumplings at once and cover the pot, so it starts boiling again as soon as possible. Boil for 3-4 minutes, take away the heat and leave dumplings in water for further 15 minutes. Now they should be cooked.

Proceed with all dumplings, sweet or savory and place them on flour covered board before cooking them.

Breadcrumbs for sweet dumplings

The sweet dumplings, stuffed with fruit, are usually tossed in sweet breadcrumbs. For this melt butter in a pan, add breadcrumbs, sugar and ground cinnamon. Fry slightly and stir good until crumbs are hot. Don´t give it color when frying.