Any hints about Kartoffelklösse success in preparing?

Make sure there are potatoes in the recipe.

Use Kashubian potatoes. But seriously, leave the potatoes in their skins and don't boil them too quickly. Peel after they cool down. There are plenty of recipes online ...

Thanks, guys. I know this is a food thread, but I figured buried down here so low it wouldn't be noticed by many. My team from school is coming over tomorrow and I'm fixing sauerbraten with gingersnap gravy for them. Usually, I just serve egg noodles with it, but the Kartoffelklösse in a cookbook sounded very tempting. However, it is a bit more complicated in numbers of steps required, so I thought I'd come here to see whether anyone had tried it. The part about poaching the potato balls sounds a little daunting because the directions are very indefinite. I don't know how the dumplings should look once poached. And, also, the suggestion of sticking a prune into each dumpling sounds tempting, too, although the prune inside, according to the cookbook, is usually served with goose rather than beef.

Hardest part of all: teaching myself how to say Kartoffelklösse: car TOFF fell KLUR suh (my untrained assumption)

I'm not brave enough to try something new on company, Mizz T. What I would do is buy a package of frozen (or chilled) spätzel and just boil it up-- it's like gnocchi and goes well with sauerbraten.

Now you have another German word to curl your umlauts around.

As you know, Mizz B, my cooking is extraordinarily limited and my friends always enter my kitchen with care. If all else fails, I have a big bag of gingersnaps and a gallon of milk we can share in front of the fire. I will definitely try the Kartoffelklösse if for no other reason than I'd like to see this happen:

The dumplings are supposed to sink to the bottom of the poaching pan and then rise up again. Imagine that! A resurrection of dumplings! Well worth the try.

I'm fixing sauerbraten

Traditional Rhenish Sauerbraten is made with horse. I have always been sorry that I didn't try it at the one restaurant in Bonn which still served it On Tuesdays if I remember correctly.

You cook them live ravvies doncha? 10 to 15 minutes and they should rise to the surface. I'd second Anna's suggestion of spaetzli. If you make too many Kartoffelklösse you can slice the remainder the next day and fry them in butter. Yum! I'll try to dig out my pre-war bride's gift cookbook auf Deutsch and translate the recipe for Kartoffelklösse for you. (I found it at a book recycling bin once, and have always had great fun with it, though it's being written in Fraktur slows one's reading down.) Anywho, I looked up Quatsch once to see how to make some dishes with this interesting dairy product. It started with how to make Quatsch. Hot damn!

Have you ever seen a German peeling a potato after it's been cooked? Stab it with a fork. Hit it moderately with a butter knife. Peel away the skin in a few quick peels.

Good luck with the dinner.

The potatoes are boiling now. My mother weighed them: just slightly over the two pounds required. Thanks for the fork/knife hint, jheem. I'd never eat a horse though I've eaten like one at times. The roast has been in the marinade crock for four days now, so it's full of flavor. The marinade tastes just as it should with that slight hint of ginger. I follow an old recipe that calls for leaving the roast in the refrigerator 12 hours and out for another 12, on and off, for four days, but I've heard that some marinate the roast for 36 days. Amazing. I don't have the patience to wait that long. Oh, and I decided to stuff each dumpling with freshmade croutons--three inside each--as one recipe creator suggested.

Oh, and I decided to stuff each dumpling with freshmade croutons--three inside each--as one recipe creator suggested.


Some Yuletide versions of the recipe call for a pitted prune to be inserted into each the dumpling. Traditionally served with goose. I looked in the old cookbook, but it just said to cook the dumplings in boiling meat broth or salted water for ten minutes. It's one of those old-fashioned cookbooks that assumes you pretty much know what you're doing, and just reminds you of stuff. I have another German cookbook from the '60s, and it's more handholding in its approach. Dust your hands with flour when forming the dumplings, etc. Did you make Rotkohl to go with your Sauerbraten?

If the rotk. is red cabbage, yes, it's on the menu.

I formed the dumplings; they're chilling now so I can poach them right before serving. I had a dry (wet) run on one, and it came out excellently! I tried it in some of the boiling marinade that will later be transformed into gingersnap gravy. It was a very good dumpling--and I especially liked the potato-flour combination. This should be a fun evening on a cold November night.

Thanks for the comments here. I now know that Rotkohl is indeed red cabbage, and that turned out fine. Everything did, unusual for my dinners, but the gods were with us. I love the kartoffelklösse with sauerbraten--somewhat savoury and a good contrast to the flavors of the beef marinade and rotkohl. I don't think I'll go back to noodles again. One change: I think the kartoffelklösse would be better without the crouton (I just made fried bread cubes) because the potato-flour-egg combo tasted very good as it was and the bread detracted from the dumpling. Oh, well, not again for at least another year. I think sauerbraten is kind of a once-a-year dish. Thanks for tolerating a food thread. It was good to learn about rotkohl. (My father used to call sauerbraten 'rottenbraten,' by the way.)

Gingersnap gravy?!?!?!?
Sounds strange but wonderful. Please enlighten me.

It's good to pour over your limpets and sea cucumbers, Zed.

Oh, you, AnnaS! Always sooooooooo ironic! I was going to say you are so droll. Is drollness a form of ironic bent? I would think so, but I'm not English.

Now on to gingersnap gravy:

The sauerbraten marinates in a vinger-wine-apple-clove-and-much-more marinade. To make gingersnap gravy, drop about nine or so gingersnaps into a glass half-filled with the marinade when you're pretty close to serving time. The marinade will soften the gingersnaps as you stir them apart. The dissolved gingersnaps and marinade are poured into a frying pan with about two or so cups of pure marinade. Stir till it's thickened. It's very good over the dumplings...or noodles...or hot German potato salad, which my mother will make next Saturday for our Christmas choir rehearsal. I put a couple tablespoons of butter into the frying pan first to make the gravy wicked and to prevent it from sticking, though I do stir it the entire thickening time.

It's good to pour over your limpets and sea cucumbers, Zed.