STILL NEW YORK-HUNGRY

18. Laura's Pumpkin-Parmesan Dumplings (Yummy Carb-Bombs)

Guess what?

Nonna Stella immediately stopped nagging that "traditional" South Tirolean dumplings aren't made like this upon tasting these... and she got that dreamy expression of sheer culinary bliss on her face, too. Not to mention her favorite nipotino, Vince when Laura surprises them both with these somewhere down my novel series or a short.

And when it's Nonna-approved, you can trust me blindly on these.

Real life's not so rosy as it's again a tough moment for me in my metamorphosis from mental ship-wreck into remotely a human being. Decluttering stalled, being social, too... I haven't seen my friends in weeks and months. And some of them live 3 houses farther.

On May 29, I was literally shocked awake.

A heavy painting hanging on the wall of the corkscrews to the lower level of the flat suddenly crashed down that night, and demolished a heavy marble bistro table that stood in the corner between bedroom and corridor to the office where I was just closing the blinds.

Why's that important?

10 seconds earlier, and that bugger would've struck ME, and I wouldn't be writing anything to anyone, probably ever again.

Since then, I have

– got rid of heavy silver-/gold ware and some space-robbing other stuff of my late parents to my friend Marina who uses them as planting vessels and decoration objects for her garden. We spent a long day together catching up.

– checked on my friends living just next by.
– checked on my family and friends in the flash flood areas in Southern Germany.

– decluttered all spots that could probably collapse / crash down like that bloody painting, too – sideboard, bookshelf, old farmer's cupboard in the living + dining areas and a delicate old buffet from Großmama + a wall unit with a fickle hinge in the kitchen.

My place looks like someone threw a bomb into an Amazon warehouse.

Anyway, I wasn't only rattled from my Near-Missed Death Experience, but also reminded what I'd disconnected from, plus painful memories resurfaced, too.

And when you're so effed in the head like me the previous 12 days, you need one thing to go on: SOUL FOOD, best carbed soul food.

And here Germans tend to be oxymoronic – not all of us, but a substantial portion I obviously belong to.

We retreat to the kitchen and for HOURS hone + craft the soul food, pamper it, give it time to rest, gently prep it and lovingly place it in its bed of sour cream in a soup plate.

Yeah, you got it: in reality we don't only do that for our soul food, but for our own soul, too.

Anyway, at home, Dad was responsible for dumplings of all variations: veg or not, filled or not... you name it.

He often made them, also as soul food, and although it takes time to make them, and you got hungry like poop while waiting for the bloody buggers to be finished, you didn't brainlessly gobble them down in the end, but celebrated them, although you were half-dead of autolysis already.

I may be born in Cologne, in the West of Germany halfway to the Netherlands already, but I grew up in the South. And either side of the Bavarian Border (the last inner-German border), Bavaria where my Dad's from, we LOVE Knödel!

Also a reason I made these.

The recipe, though I got out of Björn Freitag's Grenzenlos Köstlich (Borderlessly Delicious, only in German).

But now I really have babbled enough – now it's time for some deeds, eh?

So off to the kitchen, dudes!





Serves: 10 - 16 dumplings Depending on how big you make them. No, joke aside, I tend to make them smaller so they don't disintegrate when you cook them.


Prep Time: 1.5 - 2 hrs

Degree of Difficulty: Easy But make sure to take the needed time. This is SLOW food.




WE NEED

250 gr / 8.8 oz. Hokkaido-pumpkin 340 gr / 12 oz. here... who's being a nitpicker?

500 gr / 1.1 lb. Knödelbrot In my (SW) corner of Germany you can buy it pre-prepped in the supermarket or bakery. If you can, take real white bread from a bakery and let it turn stale 1-2 days. You need it stale – which I think supermarket toast in the UK/US can never become.

1 onion My fave, RED one. Like the pumpkin, it adds nice color.
1 tbsp veg oil Since it's an Italian dish, I took Olive Oil Extra Vergine, but Canola's okay, too.
500 ml / 16.9 US fl.oz. veg stock Try to find one with the least amount of added chemicals

100 gr / 3.5 oz. Parmesan As always, the REAL one, Parmegiano Reggiano from Italy, not the inferior stuff from the supermarket.

2 eggs M / L-sized

35 gr / 1-1.5 oz. flour NOT conventional flour as that's so pesticide-ridden in the US that you can drink a cup of RoundUp for same effects. Try to find organic ones. These farmers may NOT use pesticides, at least in Europe..

salt
black pepper freshly ground





WE DO

1. Chop the pumpkin in 1/2 - 1 in cubes and cook it on low-middle heat with 1-2 oz. of water until tender, about 15-20 minutes.

Meanwhile, peel and finely chop the onion, grate the Parmesan and grind the pepper. Cut the stale bread into small pieces and fill it into the BIGGEST bowl you have. In my case I needed my second-largest POT because my big bowls were too small.



2. Heat the oil in a pan / little pot and sauté the onion for about 5 minutes on middle heat, then add the veg stock and simmer until its warm. Finger test, so WASH YOUR HANDS!


3. Pour the onion stock over the Knödel bread. Puree and add the pumpkin puree, parmesan, flour + eggs. Season with salt + pepper. Except for the spices, I added each ingredient singly and roughly stirred it into the mass with a tablespoon. Then I continued with the kneading hooks of my hand blender, and only then "finished" by kneading it with my hands because admittedly... the stuff's quite clingy.





4. Let Knödel dough rest for 20 minutes.


5. Heat a pot of water. With moistened hands – remember, dough's sticky! – shape the amount of knödel you please – see Serves: above – and "park" them on a cutting board / plate. When it almost cooks, salt the water –0.25 - 0.5 oz. – and let 4 knödel slip into the water using a slotted spoon. Turn down the heat and let the knödel simmer for 20 minutes OR until they float on the surface. That can happen before the 20 minutes are over... so take them out as soon as they swim on top.


6. Lift the finished knödel out of the water, let them drain on the slotted spoon before setting them into a deep plate.

Chef Freitag – see intro! – recommends topping it with molten butter + fresh thyme but I didn't have that. BUT, they taste very yummy with hand-made sour cream, which I used, too. For that:


7. Finely chop an onion (best red) and 2 large garlic cloves and whisk together with

– 500 gr / 1.1 lb. farmer's cheese
– 200 gr / 7 oz. natural sour cream BOTH NOT sweetened, flavored, or otherwise effed up.
– 3 tbsp aceto balsamico Dark or light doesn't matter
– 1 tbsp sugar
– 1 tsp salt
– 1/2 tsp black pepper
– 2 oz. fresh / frozen herb mix E.g. parsley, dill, cress, chervil, chives, sorrel, borage, pimpinella.


8. Line the plate's base evenly with 2-3 tbsp sour cream and set 4 knödel on top.


Guten Hunger & Buon Appetito! =>