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Snits and Knep
Soak 1 pound dried apples overnight. Boil a small piece of ham until nearly done, add apples and boil gently until done. Then make dumplings by above recipe, or if you want to be Dutch and technical, add a beaten egg to the recipe and leave out some of the milk. Drop dough by tablespoonfuls on top of stewing mixture, cover tightly, and boil gently 15 minutes. Lift out dumplings carefully before trying to take up the rest of the dish. Dash apples and dumplings with cinnamon or nutmeg, and then eat without delay.
If it is more convenient, cook apples and dumplings together, and fry the ham separately. In this case be sure to put 1 teaspoon browned ham fat over each dumpling.
A Pennsylvania Dutch one-pot supper of dried apples, ham and steamed dumplings. The dumpling dough comes from the preceding recipe in the book, so read that first; everything else here is a matter of timing and restraint with the lid.
- Snits and knepSnitz (also snits) are dried apple slices; knep are dumplings. Buy unsulphured dried apple rings rather than freeze-dried chips, which dissolve into sauce.
- Soaking and liquidDried apples need enough water to cover them well overnight and will swell considerably. Keep the soaking water and cook the apples in it; that liquid carries much of the sweetness and is what the dumplings steam over.
- The ham"A small piece of ham" here means a smoked, salt-cured piece rather than modern deli ham. Simmer it until nearly tender, the time depending on its size. If your ham is very salty, discard the first water before adding the apples.
- Do not lift the lidThis is the hinge. The dumplings cook in trapped steam, not in the liquid; uncovering them partway through drops the temperature and gives you dense, gummy centers. Cover tightly, keep the liquid at a bare simmer for the full 15 minutes, and check only at the end.
- Drop them on solid footingThe dough is best dropped onto the apples and ham rather than into open liquid. If the pot looks soupy, ladle out some broth first and return it after the dumplings come out.
- The egg variationAdding one beaten egg and leaving out a comparable amount of milk (an egg is about 3 tablespoons) gives a firmer dumpling that holds its shape when lifted. The milk-only version is lighter but more fragile.
- Browned ham fatIn the version where the ham is fried separately, the teaspoon of hot fat spooned over each dumpling is not decoration; it supplies the smoke and salt the dumplings would otherwise have picked up from the pot.
- Yield and servingA pound of dried apples with a piece of ham makes a substantial main dish for a family. Serve immediately, as the book insists: dumplings left standing collapse and turn heavy.