Kartacze – Potato And Meat Dumplings aka Zeppelins

recipe

Kartacze ( Lithuanian: Cepeliny , English: Zeppelins ) are pretty time consuming dish, no doubt here. However well worth the effort. Although it may be a scary task if you think about spending around 2 hours in the kitchen preparing and cooking these delicious dumplings, it will cover family dinner and you can store some in the freezer for later as well.

KARTACZE POTATO DUMPLINGS PREPARATION & COOKING RECIPE

Ingredients

• 13 large potatoes (floury)
• 500g minced pork
• 1 tspn marjoram (UK)*
• 1 egg
• 2 tbsp potato starch (UK)*
• salt and pepper (UK)* for taste
• 100g smoked bacon or pancetta

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How to prepare Potato And Meat Dumplings

1. Mix minced pork with salt, pepper and marjoram well and put it in the fridge or some cooled place until you are ready with the dough.
2. Cook 3 potatoes in jackets. Peal and mash the potatoes and cool them down.
3. Peal the remaining 10 potatoes and grate them using the smallest holes (potato grater). Then squeeze out the juice using clean kitchen cloth. SMALL TIP: Our grandmothers used muslin squares for that and I confirm it works great as it allows to speed up the process slightly. Keep the juice as you may use it for cooking.
4. Prepare the dough by mixing mashed potatoes, grated potatoes egg and flour starch. Don’t be tempted to use more eggs as it will make the though less tasty after cooking. Knee the dough thoroughly.
5. Form the small 2cm meatballs and put the aside and form zeppelin shaped dumplings around the meatballs (5 – 6 cm long)

Cooks Tip: You may use 1/3 of minced beef or minced lamb instead of pork to achieve slightly better taste. This is a really old recipe and people used to use lamb in the beginning.

How to cook Potato And Meat Dumplings

1. Cook potato dumplings in slightly salted water. I like to salt it the same way as when I cook potatoes for mash. Bigger pot is highly recommended to fit more. It will save you the hassle and will reduce cooking time.
2. At this stage you can add remaining potatoe juice that contains natural potato starch to the boiling water. It will give Kartacze better texture and smoother finish.
3. The first batch of dumplings may not look so perfect, despite your tries. Don’t get discouraged as this is normal. Boil on medium-low heat until cooked through. Dumplings will start floating and since then let them cook another 2-3 minutes. Repeat the process of cooking until you cook all of them. Of course the bigger pot, the better as I’ve mentioned earlier it may shorten the cooking time significantly.

Can I freeze Kartacze?

You can freeze Kartacze potato and meat dumplings and reheat them in boiled water the same way as you would boil for the first time. Just be mindful you will need a little less salty water as your Kartacze have been already salty because you have already boiled them in salted water before.

Also if you’ve made enough of kartacze for the next day or simply for later, but not enough for freeze it, you can fry it on the pan. There are two methods of doing it. You can cut kartacz (singular) into 1.5cm slices along shorter side or just on halves along the longer side. It’s easier to fry them sliced but I like halves as the meat will still hold a little bit of moisture inside. Enjoy!