My uncle Pete is Hungarian and quite a cook. As such, we have adopted some of his recipes into our family; we always eat Szekely Goulash on New Years Day (sort of a combo of our PA Dutch traditions* & his Hungarian roots) and serve “hunky” rice as a side dish. Pete’s grandmother used to make plum dumplings for him that he was wild about, but unfortunately the recipe was not passed along & wasn’t recorded. He has been pining for these treats, but couldn’t find the recipe and wasn’t even sure what they were called. Well, Pete, I have answers!!
Dig, it — Szilvas Gomboc (Hungarian Plum Dumplings)
I found this recipe on the interweb, thanks to June Meyer. And although they don’t sound like something I would ever want to eat, I’m assured they are quite tasty. Here’s June’s recipe:
- 2 1/2 dz. Free Stone Italian plums, washed, split, pit removed
- 4 or 5 medium sized Potatoes
- 1 egg beaten
- 4 cups of flour (unsifted)
- 1 tsp. salt
- Buttered bread crumbs
- Sugar
- Cinnamon
Peel potatoes and cook in salted water till soft.
Drain and peel.
Mash potatoes and add warm to sifted flour and salt on a kneading surface.
Make a well and add egg and knead gently till all is blended.
On a clean floured surface, roll dough out to 1/2 inch thick.
Cut dough into 4 inch squares and put a plum into center of each square.
Place 1/2 tsp. sugar and a sprinkle of cinnamon in the hole of the plum.
Fold corners to the middle and roll the dumpling in your hands till round.
Cook a few dumplings at a time in salted water for about 10 minutes.
Remove with a slotted spoon.
Place in a pan in which bread crumbs have been toasted in butter (one cup crumbs to 1/4 cup butter) and mixed with 1/2 cup of sugar and 2 tsp. cinnamon.
Keep warm.
When all the dumplings have been cooked and are in the pan, gently spoon the bread crumbs, butter, sugar and cinnamon mix over all.
Serve warm with bread crumb topping and a dollop of Sour Cream if desired.
Sounds like a hot mess to me, but I’m going to try it out. Could be a disaster.
*For those of you non-Dutchies, we eat pork and sauerkraut every New Year’s Day for good luck. Szekely Goulash has both key ingredients as well as sausage, green pepper, caraway seeds, onions and paprika. I think this year I ate a hotdog with sauerkraut, that counts, right?
All butter!! My lovely friend Shara polled 16 people at her office about which snickerdoodle they liked best and although it was very close, all butter won. Only one of those people liked the all shortening variety (no surprise there). While I was there, I picked up this book:
I just read the first few pages and feel like I need a Tums just from reading about all the food they shovel down their cake-holes. Yikes! Thanks Shara!!!
I’m finally going to The Stanton Social on Sunday with my Poppy and Franny. I am so excited and I hope it is worth the wait.
I finally did my butter vs. shortening grudge match in a snickerdoodle recipe. I made 3 recipes: #1 used all shortening, #2 used half shortening/half butter, #3 used all butter, while all other variables remained exactly the same. As I suspected, I liked the all butter recipe best. The shortening cookies were dry and the cracks were huge. The butter cookies, while flattest of all three had the best flavor and I like the texture. The half and half had a good flavor and the cookie was “fluffy-er” than the butter. My conclusion: all butter is the best. If the flatness is a big concern, feel free to substitute a portion of the butter for shortening. When it comes to taste, you can’t beat butter!!
Notice the creepy huge cracks in the all-shortening. Some cracks are part of this cookie’s charm, but this is ridiculous.
Here we have half & half — it looks gorgeous and it tastes pretty good, but not as good as all butter.
And all butter. Delicious!! Slightly flatter than the rest, but the taste more than makes up for it.
There you have it folks! I am still having others “blind” taste it, and I will weigh their results in later.
My recipe for Avocado Chorizo Bites ran in my hometown paper, the Morning Call, last Wednesday (April 26th), I am so excited!! Good day.
What a fantastic weekend!! I had escargot for the first time and was very impressed. The garlic butter is delicious (can’t go wrong with garlic and butter) and the meat itself has a pleasant texture. I’m officially a fan, recipe here.
The weather was perfect so Anna and I went to check out the Cherry Blossom festival at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. If you haven’t been, you absolutely need to go. I did a quick search for recipes that include cherry blossoms, and the most interesting one I found is called Crispy Cherry Blossoms, but does not actually include real cherry blossoms. Sounds tasty, though.
I also went to check out the Bodies…the Exhibition with Champer, which was incredible. To be honest, it made me slightly sick at the beginning, but then I was way into it — particularly the veins and the fetus galleries. At the very end, they have a body sliced up in one inch sections (think of how a CAT scan works). It looked like many ham slabs in the shape of a person. Definitely my favorite part. Unforunately, no photos allowed.
