Friday, May 16, 2003

 
So we finally made the apricot dumplings, or marillen knodel last night. We tried to make an easy dinner because I anticipated a major process for the dumplings, and I was right! We stopped at Central Market for chicken shish kebabs, brown basmati rice (which is WAY better than regular brown rice) and some tomatoes. We also got Pop some potato salad to have instead of rice. We served a salad caprese (tomatoes, mozzarella and olive oil, but minus the basil) with the kebabs and rice. That part was fairly easy and tasted pretty good, especially with the Ponzu sauce Leah got the other day. It's like soy sauce with a kick, a little citrus-y.

Then we got to the knodel-making time and that's when the fun started. So, first of all, I made the dough the other night and it had been chilling in the fridge. Even so, it was still really sticky and hard to roll out. It was even harder to cover the apricots part because the dough was sticking to our fingers and ripping and making holes.... we eventually got all 9 apricots sufficiently covered in dough. The apricots, by the way, were whole with the pits just replaced by sugar cubes. After wrapping the dough around them, we dropped them in boiling (or simmering) water for about 10 minutes. They were about the size of tennis balls, so we could only make them in batches, 3 at a time. Then we had to roll them in breadcrumbs (that had been toasted with some butter, sugar and cinnamon) and serve them w/ a sour cream sauce, made with fat-free sour cream, lime juice and brown sugar.

They turned out VERY, VERY good, maybe even worth all the effort we put in! The apricots themselves were soft and melty, and even though they were super-tart for some reason, it was the good kind of tart that makes your jawbone tingle :) The sauce was pretty sweet and went well with the tartness and the dumpling dough was just lightly sweet. We each ate two and felt so full afterwards, but it was totally worth it!


Jacki 5/16/2003