Wednesday, March 7, 2012

Griesknoedel - semolina dumplings with vegetarian goulash for a carb overload!


Ingredients

Dumplings:
1/3 cup butter
3/4 cup semolina flour
2 eggs
2 tbsp sour cream
1 pinch caraway
salt
nutmeg
chives

Vegetarian goulash:
1 onion
1 red bell pepper
1/2 cup strained tomatoes
5 tbsp sweet paprika
1 tbsp caraway seeds

Having ranted on and on about my giving up sugar lent resolution, in case you've been wondering about my second resolution - less meat - I've been doing pretty well in that respect. Although I do love meat, there is such a great variety of vegetarian dishes to dip into, and most meals, I don't even miss meat.

It's also a wonderful opportunity to do a little bit of research into historical lent dishes and resurrecting old recipes. As people have been fasting during lent for centuries, there is so much tradition out there to be (re)discovered!

One of these recipes is semolina dumplings (griesknoedel). Some of you may know the small semolina dumplings served in broth, but these here are different, bigger, rounder, more dense and less fluffy, enabling them to be graduate from being an add on to taking the center stage of a very filling (and utterly satisfying! carbs, anyone?) meal. A quick and easy vegetarian goulash is just the perfect companion to provide sauce and extra flavor.

Making the dough is pretty straightforward, just mixing all the ingredients together for a rather dense and sticky texture. When preparing the dumplings, you need to keep in mind that the dough has to rest in the fridge for approximately 30 minutes before you can proceed, so it's important to plan accordingly. Then form little golf-ball sized balls (if the dough is too sticky, it helps to dip your hands in cold water from time to time), bring salted water to a boil and let the dumplings cook just below the boiling point for ca. 20 minutes.

Meanwhile, cut the onion and bell pepper in big chunks and saute in oil or butter for five minutes. Add in the sweet paprika and caraway seeds and saute for another five minutes, then pour in the strained tomatoes and let simmer for 15 minutes, adding water as needed for the desired thickness of the sauce (you will need a lot of sauce!) and season with salt and pepper.

Once the dumplings are ready, fish them out of the water, garnish with chives and serve with the goulash. Soaked with the earthy paprika of the goulash, these dumplings will melt in your mouth... should fasting be this delicious?

Life is good!

5 comments:

  1. These sound really, really good. This is a perfect meal to ward off the chill of the strange weather we've been having. I hope you have a great day. Blessings...Mary

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  2. Oh I love the combination of Grießknödel with a veg gulasch. Just realised too that I havent had grießknödel in ages! thanks for reminding!

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  3. Yay for delicious vegetarian eats! I love anything that involves dumplings and these sound super delicious!

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  4. This looks like comfort food if I ever did see it.

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  5. This is one saucy vegetable recipe. Thanks for sharing it I'ma try this one along with this one also called Vegetarian Goulash which I also found online.

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