Serviettenknödl

For Post and EaT Everything WeekEnd Lame LeftoverS I choose a dish called ‚Serviettenknödl‘. Said in short: you make a dough out of old bread and other ingredients and then cook it wrapped in a clean towel. The correct translation of ‚Serviette‘ is napkin -so originally a fabric napkin was used to put the dough in. The recipe originally comes from Austria and Bohemia. You can eat it as a side dish (e.g. together with meat) or as a main dish. Normally we have it as a main dish together with mixed mushrooms and freeze half of the Serviettenknödl. Next time we roast it in a pan and eat it with scrambled eggs.

Ingredients:

70 g butter
4 old rolls / I use to take old wholemeal bread
3 cups of milk
1 egg
1 egg yolk
100 g bacon in cubes
1 onion
caraway seed
1 pinch of salt
125 g – 150 g of plain flour
fresh herbs as you like them

1) cut the bread into cubes. Heat the milk and pour it over the cubed bread and let the bread cubes soak the milk for 1 hour.
2) Put the bacon cubes in a pan and roast them gently. Cut the oninon in fine cubes and add them to the bacon and also let them roast a bit. Add both to the bread cubes.
3) Add the egg, the egg yolk, the copped herbs and the caraway seeds to the bread cubes and mix it well.
4) Melt the butter and mix it with the dough. Add a pinch of salt. Add the flour spoon by spoon and mix it with the dough til it is firmly.

5) Put the whole dough in a wet kitchen towl, shape it like a big sausage and close the towel’s ends with a thread.
6) Put it in boiling salted water and let it simmer for 30 minutes.

Pete Wells