Cepelinai

Ingredients

• Raw potatoes — finely grated1.5 kg
• Boiled potatoes500 g
• Minced pork500 g
• Onion2
• Smoked pork fat — diced200 g
• Soured cream200 ml
• Potato starch2 tbsp
• Marjoram1 tsp
• Salt and pepperto taste

Salt and spices grow more slowly than the rest: doubling a dish does not double the pepper.

Weight converts to ounces and volume to cups. Grams of flour are not turned into cups, because that depends on how tightly it is packed.

Method

1. 1

   Grate the raw potato finely and wring it out in a cloth. Collect the liquid in a bowl.

   25 min

2. 2

   Let the liquid stand ten minutes, pour off the water and stir the settled starch back into the grated potato.

   12 min

3. 3

   Mash the boiled potato and combine it with the grated, adding the starch and salt. The mass should shape without sticking.

   10 min

4. 4

   Mix the mince with half the finely chopped onion, marjoram, salt and pepper and roll four firm balls.

   10 min

5. 5

   With wet hands take a lump of dough, flatten it on your palm, set the filling in it and seal it into an elongated oval.

   15 min

6. 6

   Lower them into barely simmering salted water and cook twenty-five minutes. Do not stir; just rock the pot once in the first minute.

   28 min

7. 7

   Render the pork fat with the remaining onion to crackling, spoon it over the cepelinai and serve with soured cream.

   12 min

About the dish

The dough uses two kinds of potato: two thirds raw and grated, one third boiled. Raw alone falls apart; boiled alone turns into a gluey lump.

The grated potato is wrung out and the liquid kept: the starch settles, the water is poured off and the starch goes back into the mass. That is what holds a cepelinas together.

They are boiled in salted water at the barest simmer — at a rolling boil the shell splits and the filling escapes. Twenty-five minutes, and not one stir.

Worth knowing

• — Grated potato darkens within minutes. Work fast, or add a spoon of lemon juice as you grate; it does not affect the taste.
• — The first dumpling is a test: if it opens, another spoon of starch goes into the dough.
• — Lift them out with a slotted spoon, one at a time. A fork pierces the shell and lets water in.

Nutrition

Per serving at the base yield, calculated from the ingredients rather than measured in a lab.

Calories

720 kcal

Protein

28 g

Fat

38 g

Carbs

68 g

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