My Great Grandma Derer called this canadles, like cah-nay-duhls. She is Czech/Polish/whatever the borders were, so I was always corrected by German speaking people. Turned out her dialect was a tad different. THAT’S how she said it, so that’s how I say it. She made this EVERY Friday. I apologize that the recipe isn’t exact. This is one of those old world foods, and I was taught by watching, tasting, and smelling. This was accompanied by my Great Grandpa’s schpeck fry, see other post.
You will need:
A large container of large curd cottage cheese, set out to room temperature
A small container of buttermilk set out to room temperature, small skinny container of buttermilk…not a 1/2 gallon or anything. Smallest you can buy.
A large pot of boiling, salted water
A large heavy skillet
1/2 of 1 small onion finely chopped about 1/4 of a cup, or less, whatever you get out of 1/2 of 1 small onion
1/2 of 1 small potato, peeled and finely shredded for dumplings just a really small white potato
1 egg
small chunck of slab bacon finely copped, about 1/4 of a cup, NOT regular bacon from the store, you can get REAL slab bacon at the butcher or any German/Polish store
You want the bacon and onions to be approximately the same size when chopped. Like little rectangles.
About 2 cups of flour, add more if too thin, add more water if too thick.
water
You will need to make the dumplings first, this takes time and patience.
Mix flour and water, egg and potato to the consistency of thick pancake mix.
Use a regular teaspoon, one you would eat with, gather some of the mixture on the spoon, about a 1/4 of the size of the spoon and drop into the boiling water. You want the dumpling long and skinny, but small ..the size of your pinky finger.
Keep doing this until all of the dumplings are made.
They are done when they float to the top, you don’t need to remove the one’s that are done, just keep going until all are made or it’ll take you the rest of your life to finish 😉
Drain and rinse with cold water, just a quick rinse to rinse off the starch, not a lot, you don’t want to make them “cold”, just taking the slickness off of them. You’ll see what I mean.
Add room temperature large curd cottage cheese to dumplings, mix together, set aside
Now you will need to:
Heat frying pan on medium heat
Add finely chopped slab bacon
Add onion
let onion and slab bacon cook until onion is translucent and soft, do NOT drain bacon fat from skillet.
Take skillet off of heat. You are going to add the buttermilk, but you don’t want it to curdle so the temperature needs to come down to warm. If it’s too hot the buttermilk will curdle and you are done, there’s no saving it.
Once the pan is warm slowly add the room temperature buttermilk to the pan and stir
Now add the bacon/onion/buttermilk mixture to the bowl of dumplings and cottage cheese
Stir
*note: you will know immediately if you made this right by the aroma that wafts up as soon as you add the bacon mixture to the dumplings. It’s a tangy, bacony smell that is unforgettable..at least to me..wish I could add “smell” to this post.
Serve immediately. It won’t be hot, but it will be warm enough to eat and not taste like it’s too cool. Work fast after the dumplings are done!
This is not a food you can re-heat, well you could but it tastes like crap if you do, so enjoy it right away!
Another old-world recipe from my family.
Em
A Mélange of Contradictory Tendencies 