#knoedel

@blyddyn asked this:

@petermorwood , a question for you. About a fortnight ago, I made a Gulyas and with it I served Huskovy Knedlik, thinking about it the Huskovy would go well with Paprikahendl. What are your thoughts on this?

Since that accompanied the reblog of a long-ish post, any reply other than something terse like "Sounds fine to me!" would have made it even longer.

Terse would of course answer the question nicely, but terse doesn't work very well with questions like that - at least not for me - so the fuller (as will be anyone who eats these goodies) reply is here:

*****

I'll be honest and admit I didn't know what Huskovy Knedlik were, until I looked them up and realised I do know them after all, by another name: Brotknödel (bread dumplings).

After learning that, IMO knedlik would go very well indeed with Paprikahendl, or indeed with any dish that has a rich gravy or sauce needing chased and mopped up to the last savoury drop. :->

By either name, they're a dumpling of flour, yeast, butter, eggs and milk made either round or in a fat sausage shape, poached in water or stock. The round ones are served whole, the long ones are sliced before serving.

On the right is a Czech huskový knedlík (Google translates it as "bun dumpling") while on the left is a German Böhmischer Serviettenknödel (Bohemian napkin dumpling).

Other versions use - indeed, ask for - yesterday's stale bread or rolls, cubed and fried golden then mixed with herbs, or bits of bacon, or chopped onion, and combined with the other dumpling ingredients before being wrapped to hold everything together during cooking.

This wrapper can be a piece of cloth, hence "napkin dumpling", though nowadays - as the photo shows - it's as likely to be cling-film.

The "clooty dumpling" of Discworld's Ankh-Morpork and the "clootie dumpling" of Thisworld's Scotland both get their names the same way - they're a cloth-y dumpling.

Simpler versions with fewer bits to fall off can be cooked without a wrapper, in a saucepan on the hob or, using a double-pan arrangement, water in a large pan and dumpling in a smaller then everything into the oven.

The slicing can be done with a knife, or with a piece of kitchen twine.

Here are a couple of English-language recipes. (One) (Two)

Ireland is currently sitting in the tag-end of another heatwave, but I can hear the initial rumbles and peas-on-the-roof rain of the thunderstorms that are supposed to end it, meaning autumn and hearty food is closer than it was last week.

So here's inspiration: Knedlik with goulash and raw onion garnish alongside Knödel with sauerbraten, capers (per @kommgehwech, they're raisins. Thanks!) and red cabbage.