Bread dumplings. Czech national cuisine: dumplings
Use dumpling recipes to create an unusual dish. It can be both sweet and a second course, and just a wonderful snack. See the most interesting variations of potatoes, dough or cottage cheese. With fillings of cherries, strawberries, plums, minced meat and meat. Boil, fry or steam. It will take about an hour to prepare, but the result is worth it!
Dumplings are considered a national dish in the Czech Republic and Slovakia. Prepared, as a rule, from dough or mashed potatoes. They look like small balls, a roll or a “sausage” cut into circles. For the filling, almost any product is suitable. The main thing is to properly prepare the basis of the dish, and the rest is a matter of taste and imagination. Dumplings can be breaded in croutons or, if served as a dessert, in sugar syrup.
The five most commonly used ingredients in dumpling recipes are:
Interesting recipe:
1. Prepare cottage cheese. Preferably bold.
2. Grind it on a grater or in a blender until smooth.
3. Introduce sugar.
4. Mix thoroughly.
5. Introduce semolina.
6. Give time to brew and swell semolina. This will take about a third of an hour.
7. Sprinkle the work surface with flour.
8. Roll out the "sausage".
9. Cut into pieces.
10. Put a cherry in the center of each.
11. Form a ball.
12. Boil water, salt.
13. Throw dumplings at her.
14. Wait for the balls to float and hold for about a minute.
15. Remove with slotted spoon.
16. Melt the butter in a pan.
17. Add honey and vanilla breading mixture (you can use breadcrumbs).
18. Pour the dumplings with the resulting mixture.
The five most nutritious dumpling recipes:
Helpful Hints:
. The filling in dumplings can be made completely different: strawberries, raisins, plums, dried apricots and other fruits.
. Instead of honey sauce, you can use melted chocolate or any syrup.
Czech cuisine is a special highlight of the country's national culture. Dishes are considered among the most exquisite, there are even gastronomic tours to the Czech Republic. One of the most popular among tourists and locals are dumplings. They are very filling, tasty and quick to prepare. They are offered in almost every cafe and restaurant. They are a must try for those who want to really experience the full taste of traditional local Czech cuisine.
Buchtichki or dumplings are pieces of dough that are seasoned with additives or stuffed on top. As minced meat, you can choose both sweet and salty fillings. Previously, the dish was very bland and was eaten only by the poor, for whom it was one of the few delicacies that they allowed themselves.
Today, the great advantage of such dishes is that they are tasty, satisfying, their assortment is diverse. It can be prepared quickly for the household in a simple version, or you can please guests with a more sophisticated version. Those who want to cook them at home can try, but Czech culinary specialists assure that you can still try the traditional version of dumplings only in the Czech Republic. To cook them at home on your own, premium flour on the shelves of Russian stores will not work. To get at least a similar version of dumplings, it is better to make a mixture of semolina and wheat flour. Such a test mass can provide them with airiness and softness.
Czech chefs claim that this dish combines Slavic and German culinary characteristics. Some Czechs simply call them buns, which do not require baking, but boiling. This helps to provide a special tenderness of taste.
Dumplings in any version are an essential dish in every family; both adults and children love to feast on them. Those who have never seen or tasted them, depending on how they are cooked, may say that these are simple dumplings or small sliced \u200b\u200bbread. You can distinguish them in several ways. Real Czech dumplings do not have a crust due to uniform steaming. In Chekhov, the dish is considered to be a side dish, and not a simple flour product. Those who saw the process of cutting a dish for the first time will definitely be surprised, because they do it not with a knife, but with a special thread.
In the CIS countries, it is considered something in between dumplings and dumplings. They are popular not only in Czech, but also in Austrian, Jewish cuisines. Slovenes, Norwegians, Canadians have similar dishes. They are also popular among Belarusians. Of course, the main component of dumplings in this country is potatoes.
Knedlik is even captured as part of the monument in Uzhgorod in Ukraine. It is held in the hands of the well-known brave soldier Josef Schweik. He had a special liking for this dish.
A bit of the history of dumplings
Flour balls, to which water and an egg were mixed, were popular in ancient Egypt and China. On the territory of the Czech Republic, it appeared in the Middle Ages and then they were called bays. At that time, they were cooked either in the form of boiled dough, or stale bread was rolled into balls and fried.
Rich people didn't put them on their tables, they were only food for the poor. They gained great popularity in Europe only from the 18th century, when they began to stuff them with meat (boiled or fried), liver, and fruit. For the poor, only simple options for the dish were available, stuffed ones were a rarity. The way they are prepared and served now, they began to be made at the end of the 17th century - based on dough, potatoes, rolled into balls and boiled in steam or in water. And today they are consumed as a separate dish or served with fish or meat, vegetable salads, or a special sauce is prepared for them.
Interestingly, the very name of "knedliks" is Germanic. Jan Hus himself expressed his dissatisfaction, trying to rename it in a local way and give a second name - cones, but he never succeeded. The dish is called cones only in Eastern Moravia.
Features of preparation and additions to the dish are slightly different depending on the region of the Czech Republic. So, in Silesia and North Moravia, potato dumplings are more popular and smoked or fried meat is added to it. In South Moravia and the eastern part of the Czech Republic, yeast dough or semolina-based dough is prepared for dumplings.
A huge number of types of dumplings and its popularity spread in the early 19th century. They began to come up with different forms and fillings, syrups, gravies for them. The basis of cooking has already taken not only flour, but also rice, potatoes, meat, liver.
Knedliks in the Czech Republic have become the focus of one of the local holidays, which marks the full ripening of the apricot. On one of the last days of the celebration, a competition is held to quickly eat apricot dumplings. The winner receives the title of Apricot King for a year. Each contestant is invited to consume the same portions of fruit dumplings. You can drink mineral non-carbonated water, which is offered here. The counting of the winners is carried out by counting the seeds near each participant, because for the competition they put apricots with stones in the dish.
How to cook dumplings: Czech recipes
Each variant of dumplings is prepared differently, but for the preparation of the national dish, it is worth adhering to certain cooking stages (provided that the dough is prepared with yeast).
- Put crumbled yeast and a teaspoon of sugar into a bowl, pour everything with half of the warmed milk indicated in the recipe (it should be warm, but not hot, otherwise the yeast will not give the “rise” effect).
- As soon as the mixture foams, add the rest of the ingredients: egg, second half of milk, a pinch of salt, vegetable oil. Everything is mixed into a homogeneous mixture.
- To get softer and more airy dumplings, the flour must be sifted and of high quality. For this dish, it is better to choose more expensive flour.
- Flour is added to the dough gradually, mixing the dough. As a result, it should not stick to the hands. The finished dough is covered with a towel and put in a warm place for half an hour.
- After that, mix the dough again and let it rise in the second circle. Only after that you can start making dumplings.
- Do not make thick sausages from the dough. They can be boiled and cut into pieces. If steamed, the cooking time will take 20-30 minutes, depending on their size.
Really tasty and satisfying dumplings are obtained only from fresh products that have previously been stored in the right conditions. The most popular addition to the dish is a tasty and nutritious gravy, which is made from mushrooms, meat, spices and garlic. Do not be afraid to experiment with gravies and additives to this dish. You should definitely try other types of this traditional Czech dish.
Potato dumplings: a classic recipe
To make a traditional dish, take:
- 5 pieces. medium sized potatoes.
- 1 chicken egg.
- 3 tbsp wheat flour.
- 50 g butter.
- Spices to taste.
- Up to 400 g of smoked meat or bacon.
Cooking features
- First, prepare the filling: chop the onion and fry it in oil, add the minced meat and simmer for about 8 minutes.
- Boil potatoes and mash them (you can use a crush or mash with a fork).
- From mashed potatoes, flour and eggs, prepare the dough.
- From the resulting dough, roll out the sausage and cut into small pieces. Stuff each with stuffing, form stuffed balls.
- Throw the dough into boiling water and after they have surfaced, boil for 10 minutes.
- Put the finished dish on a plate, add sour cream. You can make a salad as a side dish.
Potato dumplings: the second option
Such a dish can be prepared not only from boiled potatoes, but also raw. The tubers need to be cleaned and washed, grated. Drain the liquid that was formed in the process of chopping potatoes, and add 1-2 eggs, salt, pepper and flour to the mass. Knead the dough, roll it out and cut into small pieces. As soon as the water boils, throw them into the pan and boil them for about 8 minutes. Sprinkle dumplings with fried bacon on top, you can with onions.
Potato and not only dumplings are often served with stewed cabbage with fried meat or boiled pork. For its preparation, onions are fried with the addition of thinly sliced smoked lard, which will add juiciness and a special aroma. To the fried mixture, add pre-cut pieces of boiled pork and fry a little more. As soon as it is half-prepared, add pre-stewed cabbage (preferably sauerkraut). Mix everything and simmer in this composition until fully cooked. Be sure to pepper the cabbage, salt to taste, add chopped garlic.
Usually served as a dessert, adding sweet fillings in the form of fruits, nuts, honey, jams, syrups. The dish is prepared very quickly and simply. For him you will need:
- 0.2 kg of cottage cheese.
- A glass of flour.
- 3 eggs.
- Lemon zest (from one citrus)
- ¼ st. sugar, a pinch of salt.
- To taste - other fillers and additives.
How to cook
- Add the egg and a pinch of salt to the sifted flour, mix everything thoroughly. Combine all other ingredients for the filling.
- Roll out the dough thinly and cut into small squares.
- Form dumplings as follows: put the curd filling on each piece of dough and form them.
- When the water boils, put them in and boil for about 25 minutes. Once cooked, put on a dish and serve with any additive, you can crush with powdered sugar.
- To get a dough that will not fall apart, you need to use fresh, dryish cottage cheese. They can also be frozen for future use. When the balls with the filling are already formed, lay them in the freezer and then cook a delicious dessert very quickly.
Fruit sauces are perfect for any sweet dumplings, some gourmets even eat them with honey or cream, you can sprinkle with poppy seeds.
To make dumplings delicious, for the recipe you need:
- 300 g beef liver.
- 8 stale buns.
- 370 ml warmed milk
- ½ medium onion.
- 2 chicken eggs.
- 0.5 teaspoon salt.
- 1 tbsp butter.
- Chopped parsley, spices to taste.
How to cook?
- Cut each bun into several layers in advance and soak in milk. They must stand for at least 50 minutes.
- Grind the liver through a meat grinder or in a blender.
- Lightly fry the onion and cool it to room temperature.
- Mix the eggs thoroughly with all the spices (you can add marjoram and pepper to the parsley).
- Mix the soaked buns, liver and eggs into a homogeneous mass. So that they definitely do not fall apart, you can add a little breadcrumbs when kneading the dough.
- Cook in boiling water with a little salt. You can pull it out on a plate as soon as they surfaced.
Bread dumplings
One of the earliest classic recipes. It is done both on yeast and yeast-free dough.
To prepare them, you need to take:
- 200 ml of milk.
- 0.5 kg of wheat flour.
- 20 g yeast.
- Salt to taste.
- 1 chicken egg.
How to cook:
- Heat the milk, but do not let it boil. Soften the yeast in it, add the rest of the indicated ingredients. Knead the dough well.
- Put the bowl with the dough in a warm place and let it rise for at least 30 minutes.
- After it has come up, form small balls from the dough and boil in water. How much to cook? It all depends on the size of the products. Usually it is no more than 17 minutes.
- The best addition to bread dumplings is fried onions and sour cream.
What are dumplings served with?
Dumplings are served with soup or meat, used as an appetizer for beer, or made sweet as a dessert. You should definitely try the dish with the sauce. It is prepared on the basis of flour, butter and broth.
Together with meat, you can serve salads, broth, vegetables, sprinkle with overcooked onions. Potato, bread, liver dumplings will go well with meat sauces or boiled pork and fried onions. Special gourmets eat them with red fish.
Sweet products, in addition to being stuffed with fruit or cottage cheese, can be served with syrup, sour cream, jam and even chocolate.
Where to eat dumplings in Prague
Dumplings can be easily made at home, but for real traditional options, you need to visit one of the food establishments in Prague. You can go to:
- Cereberus Continental. The most delicious options are dumplings with smoked meats and cabbage.
- At the Chalice. The most delicious tourists here consider sweet dumplings: with jam, jam, syrup, honey. It is worth trying a dish with smoked meat, lard or minced meat.
- Restaurant beer "At Banzet". Dumplings with ham and cracklings are especially popular.
- Palac Kinskych. Here you can taste not only dumplings, but also traditional Czech dishes. The most popular dumplings are potato dumplings with fried meat. Other dishes include tasty and fragrant goulash.
Prices for a traditional Czech dish are affordable. Portions are very large and their price ranges from 100 to 200 kroons (depending on the location of the cafe or restaurant).
The protagonist of Yaroslav Hasek’s book, the brave soldier Schweik, adored this Czech dish and used to say: “For each dumpling to be larger, a human head twice”, “Listen to my advice: eat more dumplings”, “And I once argued that I would eat four geese and two bowls of dumplings with cabbage, and ate." So what are these mysterious dumplings and what do they eat with? Read about it in the article below.
Knedliks(knedliky) is without a doubt the most famous dish of Czech cuisine. They are considered part of the Czech cultural heritage. Due to the low price of this dish, dumplings can be afforded by a person with any income. According to some reports, 150,000 dumplings are eaten daily in the Czech Republic! In the old days, it was believed that a Czech girl could only get married after she learned how to cook delicious dumplings.
In fact, dumplings are sausages rolled from dough or potatoes, with or without filling, boiled in boiling water and cut into pieces. Dumplings can be from potatoes (bramborové knedlíky), test (houskové knedlíky), or with fruits (ovocné knedlíky). To prepare the dough for dumplings, simple ingredients are required: flour, eggs, milk, salt, white crackers.
On the shelves of stores in the Czech Republic, you can find frozen semi-finished dumplings that can be cooked at home.
Also here you can easily find a ready-made mixture for self-rolling and making dumplings.
In restaurants, dumplings are served as a side dish to the main course, or separately as a dessert, such as dumplings with fruit.
Dumplings are part of one of the most popular dishes in the Czech Republic called vepro knedlo zelo, which means baked pork meat with bread or potato dumplings and sauerkraut. Dumplings are also an integral part of the dish. svickova— beef tenderloin with potato dumplings and lingonberry sauce.
Dumplings are an important part of not only German, Austrian, and cuisines. These countries still cannot decide which of them was the first to come up with the knedlik. In Germany, for example, they are often used as a side dish or added to soups (in German they are called Knödel or Klöße) .
Each Czech housewife has her own recipe for making homemade dumplings and her own secrets. I didn’t try dumplings with fruit, but I ate dumplings as a side dish for the main course. You can’t eat a lot of them at once, as they are very satisfying. So, if you want to try them in, order as one side dish for two. Some people like this dish, some do not, but it is worth trying it during your stay in the Czech Republic.
Dumplings are considered to be the most famous and popular dish in the Czech Republic. They are made from raw and boiled potatoes, from flour and even bread crumbs. Dumplings can be without filling, or they can be cooked with minced meat, liver, onions and lard. They are eaten for breakfast, lunch or dinner, and sometimes for dessert!
For this, dumplings with strawberries or plums, with cottage cheese and sour cream were invented. They are prepared by every Czech housewife - according to a "great-grandmother's recipe" or according to a newfangled recipe from a glossy magazine. Today we will tell you how to cook the most popular Czech dumplings.
Recipe for classic dumplings
Heat the milk, but do not let it boil. Dissolve the yeast in milk, add the remaining ingredients, mix thoroughly and knead the dough. Put it in a bowl, cover with a towel, put in a warm place and let the dough rise (about 30 minutes). Then make small balls and boil them in salted water (10-15 minutes). 
Discover Czech cuisine starting with a simple dish! The larger the dumplings, the longer they cook. To understand whether the dish is ready, you need to pierce one of the balls with a toothpick. If it comes out dry, the dumplings are ready. Serve hot. Remember: classic dumplings are eaten with sour cream or onions fried in lard.
Recipe for potato dumplings with bacon
| Name: | Potato dumplings | |
| Date added: | 06.03.2015 | |
| Cooking time: | 40 min. | |
| Servings per recipe: | 4 | |
| Rating: | (2
, cf. 5.00
out of 5) |
Mash boiled potatoes, cool. Add the egg and flour to the cooled puree, knead the potato dough. Make small cakes from the finished dough. Make a well in each and put a teaspoon of stewed bacon with onions. Then roll into a ball shape.
The remaining oil in the pan can be used to water the finished dumplings. Boil in salted water; as soon as the dumplings float from the bottom, let them cook for 5 minutes and remove from boiling water. Serve immediately to the table, pouring with melted butter and sprinkled with finely chopped fresh herbs.
Recipe for cottage cheese dumplings
| Name: | Curd dumplings | |
| Date added: | 06.03.2015 | |
| Cooking time: | 40 min. | |
| Servings per recipe: | 4 | |
| Rating: | (2
, cf. 5.00
out of 5) After soaking the raisins, drain the water from it and mix with nuts. Grate the lemon on a fine grater to get the zest, and stir it into the nuts and raisins. Mix the remaining 50 g of cottage cheese with the nut mass to combine all the filling ingredients. Make small cakes from the curd dough. Make a well in each flatbread and put the walnut and raisin filling. Then roll into balls. Boil water in a saucepan. Throw dumplings into boiling water, cook after surfacing for 10-15 minutes. Serve hot, sprinkling each serving with icing sugar or drizzling with runny jam or honey. |
One of the main features of the Czech national cuisine is, perhaps, its mixed character. In any Prague cafe and restaurant, guests can taste dishes with Austrian, German, Hungarian and original Czech roots, the recipe of which is several hundred years old.
Czech cuisine is characterized by abundance, calorie content and fat content. Typical for the Czech table are thick soups, variously cooked meats, potatoes, stewed and sauerkraut, liver, fried sausages, cereals, sweet strudel and, as well as fried carp for Christmas. Not the last place in Czech cuisine belongs to a variety of sauces and cheese, it is added to salads and fried in batter. Well, perhaps the most Czech dishes are (pečené vepřové koleno) and dumplings (knedlík). Such a dish as dumplings is also found in Austria, and in Germany, and in Poland, and in Hungary, but dumplings are most popular, primarily in the Czech Republic.
What are dumplings and what are they
Dumplings are pieces of boiled flour or potato dough. Dumplings are very satisfying and high-calorie. It is believed that dumplings with gravies and sauces are the best side dish for meat dishes and cabbage.
Of course, the classic version is yeast dough dumplings, as well as potato dumplings. They perfectly emphasize the taste of meat, fish, stewed cabbage. Czechs are also very fond of bread dumplings: simple and stuffed with liver, meat and onions.
In addition to traditional flour, bread and potato dumplings, the Czechs prepare dumplings from meat, cottage cheese and semolina, and even as a dessert, using sweet dough and fruit or chocolate filling and always sweet sauce or gravy.
A bit of the history of dumplings
Flour balls on water and eggs were known in ancient China, Egypt and Rome, and in the Czech Republic dumplings were already known in the Middle Ages. True, then they called them differently - "bay". It was also boiled dough or soaked and then fried stale bread. At first, only the lower classes ate dumplings, since flour was the most affordable and cheapest product. Since the 17th century, dumplings-bukhtichki began to be cooked in rich houses, serving as a side dish for vegetable and meat dishes and as a sweet dessert.
The name "Knedlik" was given to the dish by the word "Knödel", which in German means "knot, dumpling". This name came to the Czechs at the beginning of the 19th century, along with a variety of dishes, fillings and flavors.
How to prepare and serve dumplings
Despite the huge variety, all dumplings are prepared according to the same principle: first, dough is kneaded from different products, the pieces of which are rolled into small balls, adding, if necessary, the filling; these balls are then boiled and served with sauce or gravy for the main course or side dish. As for sweet dumplings, poppy seeds, chopped roasted nuts, fruits, and even marmalade and chocolate are used for their preparation, and melted butter, jams, preserves, and fruit syrups are used as a sauce.
Simple dumplings cook quickly, while stuffed dumplings take time to cook. By the way, in Prague you can buy semi-finished products of various dumplings in the form of a frozen “sausage”, which the housewives cut at home into pieces of the desired size.
