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Dumplings for Stews, Etc
Have in a saucepan half gill hot water, half gill hot milk and a tablespoon butter; place the pan on the fire, and as soon as it comes to a boil add three tablespoons sifted flour. Stir well, then add one raw egg, stir well for two minutes, add another egg, stir well for two minutes, then add two tablespoons plain mashed potatoes. Season with half teaspoon salt and two saltspoons white pepper; mix well with the spoon. Have in a pan two quarts boiling water and half teaspoon salt. Drop the preparation on a lightly floured plate; divide it into twelve equal parts; gently roll them up to round shape, then plunge into the boiling water and cook for five minutes. Lift with a skimmer, drain well and serve.
This is a choux paste slackened with mashed potato and poached — essentially gnocchi à la parisienne meant to be dropped into a stew or soup at the last minute. The measurements are small and precise, so read them before starting.
- Half a gillA gill is half a cup (4 fl oz), so half a gill is 2 fl oz — 1/4 cup. The recipe therefore wants 1/4 cup hot water and 1/4 cup hot milk.
- SaltspoonsA saltspoon is a quarter teaspoon. Two saltspoons of white pepper is 1/2 teaspoon, which is assertive but correct for a bland flour-and-potato dough.
- The hinge: dry the pasteThe recipe says only "Stir well" once the flour goes in. Standard choux practice is to keep the pan on the heat and stir until the paste pulls away from the sides in a single mass; a wetter paste will be harder to shape.
- Eggs one at a timeThe two-minute stir between eggs is not padding — it lets each egg emulsify into the paste. Let the paste cool a minute or two first so the eggs do not scramble, and use eggs at room temperature.
- Mashed potato"Plain mashed potatoes" means unseasoned, unbuttered, no milk or cream. Leftover mash enriched with butter and cream will slacken the paste badly; a dry riced boiling potato is what is wanted.
- Do not use a rolling boilThe boil -- The recipe says to plunge the dumplings into boiling water. A hard rolling boil risks breaking them up, so a gentler simmer is safer, though the original does not say so.
- Five minutes is a minimumTiming -- The recipe gives five minutes. The dumplings will rise to the surface before that; cut one open to check the centre is set rather than pasty.
- YieldThe recipe divides the paste into twelve dumplings. No number of servings is given; they are a garnish for stew or soup rather than a dish in themselves.
Dumplings like these sit at the crossing point of French and Central European practice: the base is pâte à choux, the same cooked flour-and-egg paste used for gougères and éclairs, poached rather than baked, with mashed potato added for body and a softer bite. Choux paste combined with potato is not exclusively Central European — pommes dauphine is a French preparation on the same principle. In French kitchens the choux version is generally known as gnocchi à la parisienne; in Austrian and Bohemian cooking, close relatives appear as Nockerl and as the small dumplings dropped into goulash. Dividing the paste into twelve equal parts on a floured plate, rather than dropping it by spoonfuls, produces a uniform garnish that cooks at a uniform rate.