Pierogi Two Ways: Lentil-Onion and Sweet Potato Cheddar

I had made pierogi once before from this cookbook (with kasha-mushroom filling - March), and had forgotten how divine the dough is.  Teeming with sour cream, butter and eggs, (and I snuck in a little whole-wheat flour!) it smelled heavenly while I prepared the dumplings. I rolled it out, cut it in circles with a cup, and filled the circles with (a) boiled green lentils, sauteed onions, salt and pepper or (b) mashed sweet potato, cheddar cheese, sauteed onions, salt and pepper.  The sweet potato filling was much easier to manage, in part because it wasn't as wet as the lentils, which made it hard to seal the dumplings.  After folding the circles in half and chilling them in the fridge for a while, I boiled the pierogi for five minutes and tossed them in butter.  Hearty, toothsome and satisfying - the definition of comfort food - this is a recipe I'd definitely make again.  Yum!

Chicken Paprikash with Dumplings (Csirke Paprikas Galuskaval)

  

Another terrific stew.  This rendition of chicken and dumplings is brightly flavored with sweet Hungarian paprika, tomatoes and bell peppers.  The stew is straightfoward - brown the chicken parts in butter, remove the chicken and then cook an onion in the butter, eventually adding garlic, paprika, and tomatoes.  Add the chicken back to the sauce with a little water, cover and cook for about 30 minutes, add a sliced bell pepper, and cook about 10 minutes more.  I removed the chicken from the bones to make it easier to eat, but this step wasn't part of the original recipe.  

The dumplings are made of whole wheat flour, a beaten egg, melted butter and a bit of salt, mixed together and cooked in salted boiling water before being added to the finished stew.  Served hot with a generous dollop of sour cream, this stew is perfect.  I would make it again in a heartbeat.

Hungarian Beef and Bean Stew with Tiny Dumplings (Csipetke)

This is a quintessential beef stew that I hope to make many, many more times.  It starts with a couple of marrow bones and one giant meaty soup bone simmering in water for about four hours.  When the meat was pull-apart tender, I removed the bones from the pot and set the meat aside until the end. Then I added some soaked pinto beans to cook for another 45 minutes, followed by some onions sauteed with paprika and flour, and lastly sliced carrots and bell pepper, and salt to taste.
The dumplings are made like a simple pasta: 1/2 cup whole wheat flour, one egg, and a half teaspoon salt mixed together and given a rest at room temperature to soften. When the stew was ready, I dropped small pinches of dough (so small that 1/2 cup of flour turns into 80 dumplings!) into the simmering stew and let them cook another five minutes.
I made too much broth at first so I strained it, added some tapioca and cooked it down for a few hours longer.  The resulting stew had an incredibly rich beefy aroma, vegetables that still held their flavor, and, best of all, adorable little dumplings that add texture, heartiness, and that undefinable "comfort food" factor that makes this recipe a real keeper.
I'm sure it would be even better with sour cream.

Spiced Carrot Pudding (Steamed Cake)

Here is the steamed version of carrot cake.  This one is made with chunks of white bread, whole wheat flour, shredded carrots, sugar, baking powder, pudding spice (coriander, allspice, cloves, cinnamon, ginger and nutmeg) and butter, mixed together with milk and beaten egg, and then steamed in a bowl for about an hour and a half.  The original recipe called for a grated potato, which I didn't have on hand, so I added a couple of extra carrots and cut back the sugar from 1/3 to 1/4 cup.

The cake was deliciously sophisticated - not as sweet or moist as a traditional carrot cake, but more like a muffin.  It would be divine with whipped cream or cream cheese frosting... but at present it sustains the illusion of being healthy.

I decided to include a visual pudding-basin tutorial this time: 

Step 1: Line a quart glass bowl with butter, sugar, and whatever goodies you want to appear on the top of the inverted cake.

Step 2: Fill prepared basin with batter.

Step 3:  Place a piece of parchment over the top of the batter followed by a wet kitchen towel or a piece of muslin.  Tie a string around the lip of the bowl.  Make sure to tie it tightly!

Step 4: Tie opposite corners of the cloth together, forming a handle.

Step 5: Bring a pot with a few inches of water in it to a boil.  Push a folded cloth into the bottom of the pot, and then lower the prepared pudding bundle into the boiling water.  Cover it and let it cook for 1 1/2 hours, and serve warm with double cream!

Chickpea Dumplings with Berbere Sauce (Shimbra Asa)

This recipe is hot - spicy hot!  It's made of little chickpea-flour biscuits simmered in a savory sauce full of hot pepper, onion and tomato.  The biscuits are made from freshly-milled chickpea flour mixed with salt, oil and water, flattened into little disks and baked.  They're toothsome and satisfying.  I could eat them all by themselves.  The recipe also called for them to be shaped like fish, in which case it would be called yeshimbra asa, and I would feel more like I was eating cat treats.

The sauce is made from sauteed onions, a curly red chile I picked up at the farmers' market, garlic, Berbere spice (cumin, cardamom, cloves, allspice, hot peppers, and ginger - I omitted the carom, rue and holy basil), salt, red wine and tomato paste. 

We had it over rice.  The rice and chickpea dumplings provide a little offset to the extreme spiciness of the sauce, but the sauce wins.  It is so gloriously flavorful and spicy I really can't wait to have the leftovers.  This strikes me as the sort of recipe that tastes better the next day.

Collards with Ham and Purple Corn Dumplings

Few things are more "American" than collards with corn bread and pork. This recipe combines all three in a one-pot meal.  

First I picked up the collards from the City Farm booth at the farmer's market.  City Farm is a 3/4 acre urban farm in South Providence that produced over 1,500 pounds of food last year.  I sliced and blanched the collards, and then stewed them for about half an hour with a piece of ham (the recipe called for 1 1/2 hours - way too long, even for collards!).  The dumplings are made of blue cornmeal (my own twist - the recipe called for white), salt, hot water and butter rolled up into little balls and dropped onto the boiling collards to cook, covered, for another half hour.  I served these up with chopped ham and have to say that they all complemented each other quite well.  The greens and the blue corn were both a bit bitter in their own ways, so if I were to make this again, I'd go ahead and use the white cornmeal as recommended by the recipe.