Monday, February 16, 2009

Real German Cuisine Challenge: Semmelknödel mit Pilzen

Me and my first Knödel

I am tagging along with American Expat and other expat Germany bloggers in working our way through the cookbook "Die Echte Deutsche Küche" for the Real German Cuisine Challenge.
Our first week's attempt is Semmelknödel mit Pilzen (link to recipe here), which is known, in Bayern, as Rahmschwammerl. Delicious, plus, I had never made my own Knödel before, and if my destiny is anywhere near becoming a German Housewife (he he) then I'd better master this one.
The ingredients

I started by cutting everything: chopping mushrooms, whizzing onions and parsely through the food processor, then soaked the bread in the warm milk.


Then, I cooked everything for the dumplings and had a blast forming them into lovely bready spheres (kind of like making a snowball. I had to fight an urge or two to throw one across the room) and plopped them into the boiling salt water (but not before making a cute little "test dumpling" to make sure they didn't fall apart).
The sauce cooked up quite nicely and I (unlike Amiexpat) did use Shitake Mushrooms, along with Austerpilzen and rehydrated dried mushrooms Artur and I got as a gift from his relatives in Poland (hand gathered, of course). It cooked up nicely and had lots of flavour, and the lemon juice was a lovely touch. I didn't need anything to thicken it—I just let it cook off for a while.

Overall rating: delicious, fairly easy, and very authentic. This will go on my list of German meals to make for my family when I go home. I can't wait for next week's Rahmgulasch (Creamy veal goulash).

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