I just about died when I saw a feature in the November issue of Saveur about Central European soups. Are you kidding me? Give me a rich broth with some dumplings and sausage, and I'll follow you just about anywhere.
Of all the deeply comforting options, I set out to replicate Maultaschensuppe, which contains meaty dumplings that are a specialty of Swabia in southern Germany. They looked like puffy little pillows in the picture.
With my Saveur recipe in hand, I pestered the butcher at Ballard Market to wrap me 3 ounces each of ground beef, pork, veal and bacon. We're off to a good start, right?
I mixed together the dumpling dough and rolled it 1/16 inch thick, so it was satiny and translucent. I've made ravioli several times, and this was similar. So far so good.
To make the dumpling filling, I combined the four types of raw ground meat in a bowl with fried onion, cream, cooked spinach and eggs. I wondered briefly why I wasn't required to brown the meat to develop its flavor. Wouldn't that make it a little tastier than just steaming it inside the dumpling filling? Then again, I thought, this is a common practice for Asian dumplings. And if it's a flavorful filling overall, I'm sure it will turn out fine.
I also wondered why I had been asked to cook the chopped spinach before including it in the filling; was that really necessary? Wouldn't it just wilt when it steams inside the dumplings?
The real questions came when I was required to season the raw dumpling filling. "Add salt, pepper and nutmeg to taste."
So here I am, trying to follow this recipe to a tee because I'm completely unfamiliar with this soup, and they can't just tell me how much to season the raw meat mixture? I'm supposed to taste the raw meat several times not only for salt and pepper, but also for nutmeg? How do I know how much they want it to taste like nutmeg? At this point I'm sensing I've just invested a few hours of my life in a lazy, untested recipe.
I formed the dumplings and boiled them. To serve the soup, I added them to chicken broth containing diced carrot, celery and parsley. Never mind that the recipe description and photo featured chives, while the recipe listed parsley -- the broth was a total snooze. No roux to make it a little richer and more flavorful? No extra seasoning? How embarrassing.
The really sad thing about this recipe fail was that the issue's editor's letter was all about the feature on Central European soups -- how they've been working on it for an entire year, collecting recipes and photos from soup experts all over the region.
I guess it goes to show that recipe development and testing take a lot of time and attention to detail...and when you don't do it properly, you waste people's time and money. I thoroughly test any recipe before I list it here on Seasonal Seattle, so if you try one and it doesn't work for you, please please let me know. I don't want you to feel how I did tonight!
Of all the deeply comforting options, I set out to replicate Maultaschensuppe, which contains meaty dumplings that are a specialty of Swabia in southern Germany. They looked like puffy little pillows in the picture.
With my Saveur recipe in hand, I pestered the butcher at Ballard Market to wrap me 3 ounces each of ground beef, pork, veal and bacon. We're off to a good start, right?
I mixed together the dumpling dough and rolled it 1/16 inch thick, so it was satiny and translucent. I've made ravioli several times, and this was similar. So far so good.
To make the dumpling filling, I combined the four types of raw ground meat in a bowl with fried onion, cream, cooked spinach and eggs. I wondered briefly why I wasn't required to brown the meat to develop its flavor. Wouldn't that make it a little tastier than just steaming it inside the dumpling filling? Then again, I thought, this is a common practice for Asian dumplings. And if it's a flavorful filling overall, I'm sure it will turn out fine.
I also wondered why I had been asked to cook the chopped spinach before including it in the filling; was that really necessary? Wouldn't it just wilt when it steams inside the dumplings?
The real questions came when I was required to season the raw dumpling filling. "Add salt, pepper and nutmeg to taste."
So here I am, trying to follow this recipe to a tee because I'm completely unfamiliar with this soup, and they can't just tell me how much to season the raw meat mixture? I'm supposed to taste the raw meat several times not only for salt and pepper, but also for nutmeg? How do I know how much they want it to taste like nutmeg? At this point I'm sensing I've just invested a few hours of my life in a lazy, untested recipe.
I formed the dumplings and boiled them. To serve the soup, I added them to chicken broth containing diced carrot, celery and parsley. Never mind that the recipe description and photo featured chives, while the recipe listed parsley -- the broth was a total snooze. No roux to make it a little richer and more flavorful? No extra seasoning? How embarrassing.
The really sad thing about this recipe fail was that the issue's editor's letter was all about the feature on Central European soups -- how they've been working on it for an entire year, collecting recipes and photos from soup experts all over the region.
I guess it goes to show that recipe development and testing take a lot of time and attention to detail...and when you don't do it properly, you waste people's time and money. I thoroughly test any recipe before I list it here on Seasonal Seattle, so if you try one and it doesn't work for you, please please let me know. I don't want you to feel how I did tonight!
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