William Penn Life, 2010 (45. évfolyam, 1-12. szám)
2010-02-01 / 2. szám
Chicken Dumplings could have the dumplings swim on the surface. For soup, they could float in the broth. If you fill the dumpling with a protein, you could serve three or four per person as the entrée. If it has a sweet filling, perhaps one large dumpling or three small portions would suffice for dessert. 2. Find a recipe you really like for the type of dumpling you wish to make. Make sure you have all the ingredients before you start cooking. Find out how many people you will be feeding adding one more portion to assure you have enough. 3. Follow the recipe gradually through completion and remember to serve hot food HOT and cold food COLD! Yes, there are cold dumplings served as hors d'ouvres. 4. Try new recipes to expand your knowledge of ingredients. The more you know allows for replacement in future recipes. Now you know a bit more about dumplings. Enjoy the recipes for the month and support your WPA branch. Trivia Answer: China. In the 1960's, archeologists studying the Tang Dynasty unearthed a wooden bowl during an excavation in the Xinjiang Uygur region. The bowl contained completely preserved dumplings from 907 A.D. Jo fSfzoJUßS Bés& The Hungarian Kitchen is a trademark of William S. Vasvary. FÁRADJON BE A MAGYAR KONYHÁBA. This month the William Penn Association celebrates 124 years of serving its members. Since its inception back in 1886, the WPA has grown by leaps and bounds and has set the standard by which other Magyar organizations are measured. If not for the WPA, this column would not exist nor would I have the opportunity to serve as a Board member. I am grateful to be a member and count my blessings every day. Eva Smith, a reader of The Hungarian Kitchen, wrote a letter wanting to know more about dumplings. This month and next in The HK, we will learn more about dumplings and how they can add a different culinary dimension to our meals. And, thus we have your trivia question for the month: Where did the oldest dumplings in the world come from? The tasty answer waits at the end. The dumpling is actually a cooked ball of dough. You can create the dough by mixing any or all of the following ingredients: flour, eggs, spices, butter, oil and milk or cream. Sautéing, steaming, poaching, deep-frying and boiling are just a few ways dumplings are prepared. They can be savory or sweet, meat-filled, fruit-filled, vegetarian, soft or crunchy, dense-textured to sink or light-texured to float. You can create a filling with various ingredients or combine the ingredients into the dough. A good example of ingredients combined into dough is nokedli. A few more examples I am sure you will recognize include ravioli, pot stickers, pierogi, khinkali, kreplach, gnocchi, tortellini and samosa, all of which are among the most popular dumplings in the world. No matter what cuisine you choose, a dumpling is standard fare. In order to create a dumpling that floats, you need to incorporate air. By using an artificial leavening agent like baking powder, you can accomplish this task. The baking powder combines with the liquid, and when you add heat you get steam that expands the interior of the dumpling. As the temperature of the dough rises, the protein fixates and holds its shape, which traps air, causing the dumpling to float. If you wanted a heavy dumpling, just mix the dough with liquid and eggs with a flavoring agent. Let me give you a systematic way of creating the best dumplings for your chosen entrée. Once you understand the basics, you can mix and match ingredients. 1. Decide what you want to eat and how the dumpling should be prepared. If you are making a stew, you 10 William Penn Life, February 2010 Dumplings
