Sweet Plum Dumplings--All I Eat These Days

I am in Poland, and I promised myself to take some time off from the blog, especially that I have to cope with rather poor internet access. But of course I think about the food blog all the time and still take many pictures. I try new ideas with old ingredients (which means more beets and cabbage in the future) but also eat a lot of simple, seasonal, and tastyPolish food. My native cuisine and its ingredients inspire me so much that I cannot resist to share at least a couple of recipes over this remaining days here.

Eating in Poland to me is always about Polish food and I forget completely that those gorgeous tomatoes would taste fantastic with burrata, or the local smoked ham would go well with fresh figs. Instead, I eat tons of tomatoes Polish way--with onion and oil--and I eat a lot of salted cucumbers. Every other day I cannot resist fresh wild mushrooms, mostly chanterelles that are picked up at dawn the day you can buy them at the market, and gain extra pounds indulging in different cakes made with fruits that are popular in Poland--sour cherries, red currants, or Hungarian plums.

Today's recipe is a result of one of such feasts and is one of my favorite sweet dinners. I ate these dumplings (knedle in Polish) often in late summer and early fall all my childhood. Their taste--coming from a blend of a starchy dough, plums, butter, sugar, and cinnamon--is one of a kind. If you ever wonder what to do with those blue-black plums (they are called Italian in the US), my suggestion is to try and cook this wonderful dish.

My grandmother used to wonder how such a petite body as mine could accommodate so many of them--my record number was eight, but my usual intake depended on their size, which could vary from that of a tennis ball to a small cannon ball, depending on the size of the plums. I hope I convinced you to try.

Plum Dumplings
(Makes ten large dumplings)

Ingredients:
3 packed cups of cooked potatoes,
1 and 1/2 cup all purpose flour, plus extra to clean hands and dust the working surface,
1 egg,
1 tbsp potato or corn starch,
10 Hungarian or Italian plums,
1 stick of butter, melted,
1 cup sugar (more or less, depending on how sour the plums are),
1 tbsp salt,
cinnamon.

Preparation:
1. Cook potatoes and cool them down. Mush them into a purée.
2. Place potatoes in a large bowl, add the egg and both flours and make a smooth dough.
3. Cut plums in halves, but leave them connected, remove pits and put a tsp of sugar inside each of them.

4. Roll the dough in a thick log and cut into 10 equal cylinders. Place a plum on each of them and close the dough around the plums. Roll it in hands to make a perfect ball. Place on a large cutting board, dusted with flour.

5. In a large pot bring to boil water with one tbsp of salt. Dump half of the dumplings and, depending on their size, cook them for 3-5 minutes from the moment they appear on the surface. Repeat with the the rest of the dumplings.
6. Drain the dumplings, place on a serving place, drizzle with hot melted butter, a tsp of sugar per dumpling, and dust with cinnamon.

Serve and enjoy.

Coffee Panna Cotta with Frangelico--Super Easy

Today it will be about panna cotta, coffee panna cotta, precisely. And I like it so much that this will be the second time I'm showing a panna cotta dessert on my blog.

I would like to convince those who have never made panna cotta to challenge themselves and try, as it is in fact an unbelievable easy culinary task. And the result is undescribably rewarding.

I know that some people can be scared by the use of gelatin in it, which can make things messy and turn a culinary experiment into a disaster, and you may be afraid that this beautiful panna cotta can turn into a huge curd cottage cheese, rather than a smooth dessert. I assure you though that with a little bit of effort this disaster is utterly avoidable. I make many fantastic desserts and cakes based on gelatin, and I hope soon enough also you will.

Moreover, for many other reasons, panna cotta is so easy that it is the best way to start working with gelatin. And there is no way this recipe will not work, because gelatin is dissolved in a large amount of milk which prevents it from forming lumps.

Basically, all you need to do is to put all the ingredients in a pot, heat it, pour it in the molds, let it chill, and six hours later you will never regret the risk you took. The secret lies in the right proportions, so the dessert is not too liquid or too stiff.

I have always used white sugar to make it, but this time I used the brown variety to strengthen the "burned" taste of the coffee extract itself. On top of that, it created an additional visual layered effect, as the heavy sugar stayed at the bottom of the molds. This time, I also added an extra tbsp of Frangelico liqueur, to make it a more of a grown-up treat.

The biggest challenge though is to take panna cotta out of the container, as it is rather wobbly. If you are afraid of this, make it simply in nice elegant glass goblets and serve it like that.

Coffee Panna Cotta

Ingredients:
1 cup whole milk,
2 cups heavy whipping cream,
2/3 cup brown sugar,
3 tbsp coffee extract (I used simply Nescafe Instant coffee)
2 tsp gelatin,
1 tbsp Frangelico liqueur,
pinch of salt.

Preparation:
1. Pour milk over the gelatin in a medium pot and let it stand for about 10 minutes.
2. Heat the milk over the medium heat until warm and the gelatin dissolves. Add cream, sugar, coffee extract, and salt, and heat everything until very hot--but do not let it boil.
3. Set aside and cool. Add Frangelico liqueur.
4. Divide the whole mixture among 6-8 small small bowls and chill for minimum 6 hours.

Serve decorated with grated chocolate.

Peas and Herbs Pasta--Before I Go

This weekend I am leaving on an almost month-long, and probably rainy and cold vacation in Poland and I am desperately trying to empty my refrigerator and freezer. Although I have known about that for weeks and not been buying much food, my refrigerator is still packed. For some, this could be an extra food stock, for me this is a minimum, survival supply.

I hope that there would not be a major storm that will cut power for hours and unfreeze all the frozen goods. But I also have quite a lot of fresh produce that will not survive my three-week absence. So I have been experimenting with all that is left and if I had been in the mood I should have organised a party to make that stock disappear. But I was just too busy.

Last week I made a pretty good progress in emptying shelves, but yesterday I found a piece of ricotta salata that will turn into blue cheese if I do not use it now. I had no fresh vegetable to make salad of it, but still had a bag of frozen peas, and I thought about a pasta dish that once I read about in Gourmet magazine. I still had one lemon that was needed and all the herbs that are growing in my yard. Without much cooking, a fresh and summery pasta was ready in minutes--a proof that pasta can be made from anything.

Peas and Herbs Pasta

Ingredients:
1 box farfalle,
8 oz (1/2 lb) fresh peas or one bag of frozen,
1/2 lb ricotta salata,
1 lemon,
1/2 cup basil leaves,
2 tbsp fresh tarragon,
3 tbsp extra virgin olive oil,
salt and freshly ground pepper to taste.

Preparation:
1. Cook pasta in a large pot with a tbsp of salt. When it is almost al dente add peas and cook for a couple of minutes, until they become soft but still bright green. Strain everything on a colander.
2. Grate ricotta salata on a large grater into a large bowl. Grate a peel from one lemon and squeeze the juice into a bowl. Add fresh chopped herbs, olive oil, freshly ground pepper, and salt if needed.

3. Add hot pasta with peas, mix and serve.