Summer Kitchens by Olia Hercules

Author:Olia Hercules
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
ISBN: 9781526622891
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Published: 2020-06-15T00:00:00+00:00

Tatar pasta bows with garlic yoghurt and walnuts

Spelt dumplings with kraut and caramelised onions

СПЕЛЬТОВІ ВАРЕНИКИ З КИСЛОЮ КАПУСТОЙ

SERVES 2 (MAKES 16 DUMPLINGS)

2 onions

2 tbsp rapeseed oil

160g sauerkraut

210g spelt flour

20g butter (or more, to taste)

Sea salt

Yoghurt or crème fraîche and pickles, to serve

A close cousin of pierogi dumplings, varenyky take their name from varyty, meaning ‘to boil’, so they are literally ‘the boiled ones’. I never would have thought to use a spelt dough for this kind of dumpling, but I tried some near Lviv and got hooked – this is how dumplings might have been a long time ago, before industrialisation made white flour ubiquitous.

The spelt flour gives the dumplings a deep flavour, and I never feel guilty eating them as they are so nutritious. They are not as melt-in-the mouth as regular varenyky, so be prepared for more chewiness. I like to eat these doused in butter and thick yoghurt, with pickled jalapenos or some home-made chilli paste on the side.

Please read through the recipe before you get started, as you need to work quite fast with spelt dough.

First slice the onions, not too thinly. Heat the oil in a pan over a low heat and add the onions and a pinch of salt – this will help to tease out the water from the onions, making them less likely to burn. Cook for about 10 minutes, covered with a lid or a cartouche (circle of baking parchment) to help things along. Keep an eye on them and stir from time to time, adding a splash of water and scraping the bottom of the pan if they start to look a bit dry.

When they’re ready, the caramelised onions should be soft, dark and fragrant. If they look a little watery, drain off the excess liquid – the dumpling filling has to be as dry as possible. (As caramelising onions takes a little while, I often make a big batch that I can keep in the fridge and use for a myriad of dishes – in my son’s sausage sandwiches, omelettes and so on – over the next week.)

Drain the sauerkraut well, squeezing it out in a colander (put the juice back into the jar). Stir the kraut into the caramelised onions – you should have roughly 300g of filling. I like half kraut and half onion, but feel free to vary these proportions, depending on how sour your kraut is: if it is very sour, use less of it. Once you’ve got your filling how you want it, set it aside.

Lightly flour a baking sheet and put a large pan of salted water on to boil.

Now for the dough. Once this dough is made, it loses its binding powers very quickly, so I recommend making half at a time. Put 55ml of water into a bowl and mix in half of the flour to make a rough dough. Turn out onto a floured surface and knead briefly to combine.

Roll the dough into a sausage shape and divide evenly into 8 pieces with a knife or dough scraper.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.