Morillenknödel (a German potato dessert)
We really have to hand it to the Germans for coming up with ways to eat potatoes at every course. But most admirable of all are these potatoes cooked up into a delicious round knödel with a tart apricot hidden inside. Jan had never heard of them, other Germans I mentioned the recipe to were very excited, so it seems to a regional specialty. Likely from the same Buchenberg where this recipe hails.
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Ingredients
- Potatoes 2 lbs (1 kg)
- Flour 1-1/2 cup (200 g)
- Eggs 2
- Salt 1 Tbsp
- Nutmeg
- Butter ½ cup 120 g
- Apricots small ones, 1 lb (500 g)
- Sugar cubes 1 per apricot
- Breadcrumbs 6 Tbsp
- Powdered sugar
Instructions
- Peel and cook the potatoes.
- Press the hot potatoes through a potato ricer or mash them very well. Let cool.
- Mix the cooled potatoes together with the flour, eggs, salt, nutmeg and 3-1/2 Tbsp (50 g) of softened butter into a dough.
- Roll the dough into a log measuring 2-3 inches (5-7 cm) in diameter. Divide the log into ½ inch (1 cm) slices.
- Wash, dry and pit the apricots. Place one cube of sugar into each apricot.
- Wrap each slice of potato dough around a filled apricot to form a ball.
- Bring a pot of salted water to a boil. Cook the balls in the water. They are ready when they rise to the surface (like gnocchi) which should take about 10 minutes.
- Carefully remove the balls with a slotted spoon and dip them briefly in a bath of cold water.
- In a frying pan lightly roast the breadcrumbs in 5 Tbsp (70 g) of butter.
- Add the cooked apricot dumplings to the browned breadcrumbs and fry them lightly while turning them over in the lightly browned breadcrumbs.
- When you are ready to serve, sprinkle the dumplings with powdered sugar.
Notes
If you don’t eat all of the Morillenknödel in one go (they are, after all, pretty much just giant gnocchi with an apricot in the middle), store in the refrigerator and reheat them slowly in a lightly greased frying pan until they are crispy again on the outside.