Smooth Potato Dumplings--My Potato Crush

Two anecdotes come to my mind when I think about this dish. Not so long ago, at a party, I was having a conversation with a nice lady when the subject drifted toward food. "Oh, I love food" she declared at one moment. Since the conversation took a very interesting turn for me and could lead to an exchange of original recipes, I quickly admitted "I love food too". Then the lady looked at me with amusement "You love food? I love food!!!" she said exposing her curvy silhouette. "I have 20 cookbooks, I cook and I eat" she continued. "Well, I also have 20 cookbooks, I cook, and eat" I said "and I write a food blog". My last argument made her curious and she promised to check out my blog. Recently, again at a party, some hugged me and feeling my body asked "I know that you cook, but do you eat?"

These conversations were rather funny and flattering, since I cook and I really eat what I cook. And these potato dumplings are the best proof. I am probably going to sound totally uncivilized confessing that, but I usually eat about ten of them at once. I love their smoothness and a sort of gummy texture and absolutely cannot resist them, especially if they drip with dark and spicy sauces.

They are called Silesian dumplings and the recipe originally comes from Silesia. And since Silesia has been influenced by Czech, German, and Polish culinary traditions, I guess there must be different variations of them all over Central Europe. Beside their taste I also love how easy they are to make: only two ingredients are required.

Potato dumplings taste best with meat (veal or beef) sauces, and taste particularly well with beef roulades--this recipe will appear in the next post--and accompanied by side dishes made of beets or red cabbage.

Smooth Potato Dumplings
(Serves four)

Ingredients:
2 lbs potatoes,
about a cup of potato starch (corn starch can be a substitute).

Preparation:
1. Cook peeled potatoes with salt, drain them, and cool completely.
2. Smash them into a puree using potato presser.
3. Transfer the puree onto a large cutting board or plate and form a flat disk.
4. Divide the disk into quarters, and remove one of them. Fill up the remaining empty quarter with potato starch--see picture.

5. Put all potatoes in a bowl together with starch and quickly make a dough.
6. Dust your hands with starch and form smalls balls by rolling the dough--about 2 inches in diameter, finishing each one with a small dot inside.

7. Boil water in a large pot with a tbsp of salt. Throw the dumplings in and cook them for about 3 minutes from the time they rise to the top.
8. Drain them on a colander and transfer to a serving platter.

Always serve with meat sauces.

Beet Salad Again--And Why Not?

Especially that it is such a winter vegetable. Beets have been very "in" in the culinary world for quite a few years now. But in Polish cuisine they have been in for centuries. So when I see the best chefs in the world proudly throwing them over the green salads, I smile. I smile even more when I look at the price of such dishes on the menu of the most renowned restaurants.

In Poland, beet has always been a vegetable of the poor, a country food. They still are just one of the most basic, cheap, and popular ingredients of our cuisine. And one of the most beloved. No wonder that I can post several recipes featuring beets in a main role to popularize this wonderful and healthy vegetable.

Besides being used for soups (barszcz) and as a warm meat accompaniment, beets are most popular in salads. Although I love Belgian endive with beets, or green salads served with them, I prefer traditional salads that truly capture their taste and the intensive color. They can be eaten on their own or served with cold cuts or grilled meats.

This is a second from probably about ten salads that I have been serving at my house, always with a great success, and not only to my Polish friends. I make it from roasted beets rather than cooked beets. They are more healthy and tasty that way, but cooked or even marinated beets can be used as well, although in the latter case I would cut out lemon and vinegar, which are used in this recipe.

Beet Salad
(Serves 4-6)

Ingredients:
4 medium roasted beets, cut first into slices and then into sticks,
2 tsp lemon juice,
2 tsp white wine vinegar,
1 garlic clove, minced,
2 tsp olive oil,
2 tsp sour cream or yogurt, preferably Greek,
2 tsp mustard,
2 tbsp mayonnaise,
freshly ground pepper,
1 tbsp freshly chopped dill (optional),
1/2 tsp salt.

Preparation:
1. Put the beet sticks in a large bowl and season with salt, lemon juice, vinegar, and sugar. Mix well gently and let them marinate for at least two hours or even overnight.

2. Make the sauce: in a small bowl mix mayonnaise, mustard, olive oil, cream or yogurt, garlic, and pepper.

3. Pour the sauce over the beets and mix gently. Let it stand aside for 30 minutes.
4. Season with dill and serve.

Simplest Polish Beet Salad--Back to the Roots

I would not be Polish, if I did not talk about beetroots again. And I admit that they are one of my favorite Polish vegetables. Luckily, I have found them without any problems everywhere I lived. In Switzerland, where they also make beetroot salads, I could buy them already cooked, and here in America, I can buy them in more colors than red.

Going through food magazines I realized that beetroots are becoming increasingly popular. Many famous chefs and top restaurants include them into salads, while farmers clone them into unusual colors. But only in Polish and Russian cuisines beets have a truly prominent and well established position.

We prepare many national dishes with beetroots--the famous beetroot soup (barszcz aka borscht) and cold beet soup (chlodnik), and many varieties of salads. I love to eat them in the simplest way as accompaniment to meats and a dinner salad, but I also keep trying new recipes and look for new inspirations. The other day I have found a South American salad with beets that I will incorporate into my menu. It looked very original and I am sure the taste will not be disappointing. I was wondering today, if I should make something fancy and elegant to make you crave for beets, like the not-so-Polish beet salad that I make often, or rather make something really simple and familiar to show beets the way we eat them most often in Poland.

I think that if you are not afraid, or rather curious of beets, you should try them the way that we prepare them in their Polish kingdom. I would probably not post this easy recipe on any Polish blog, but since my native readers are a minority on my blog, I feel excused to do that. I hope to encourage some others to try beets, perhaps for the first time ever.

A good news is that beets (and especially their juice) are not only fashionable but also very healthy, as they are known to help fight cancer.

Since beet juice is so healthy I made just one modification in this traditional recipe and do not cook beets in water, as we do it in Poland for any kind of salads, but bake them in an oven. This way I preserve not only their beautiful color, but also some of the nutrients that would be otherwise thrown away with the water. I usually plan, and bake them when I use the oven to bake some other dish. Baked and peeled they preserve well in a refrigerator for up to 5 days.

I also add caraway seeds to that salad, as it has been done in my home, but if you do not like that specific taste you can easily skip that, without diminishing taste of the salad.

Beet Salad

4 medium beets,
1/2 sweet onion,
3 tbsp red balsamic vinegar,
1 tbsp sugar,
2 tbsp olive oil,
1 tsp caraway seeds,
salt and pepper.

Preparation:
1. Preheat oven to 375-400F.
2. Wash beets and wrap each of them separately in the aluminum foil.
3. Place them in the oven and bake for around one hour, or a little bit more or less, depending on their size.
4. Peel off the foil, remove the skin (the best is to do that in gloves, as beets will color hands), and grate the beets on a grater with very large holes.
5. Peel off the onion and cut into very small cubes.
6. Mix beets with onion, add vinegar, sugar, oil, salt, and pepper. Taste if you need more vinegar or salt, depending on taste.
7. At the end, add caraway seeds if used.
8. Let them marinate for a couple of hours and serve cold, as salad.

This salad can be stored in a refrigerator up to 4 days. It tastes best with red meats or cold cuts.