Bavarian Dumplings With Mushroom Sauce (Semmelknödel Mit Schwammerlsoße)

This is a traditional yummy and filling dish from the south of Germany ;O)

Step 1: What You Need

This is a really yummy vegetarian dish, that is great when you do have some stale bread left overs and do not have any horses or ducks to get rid of it...

You need:

1) stale bread or bread rolls, any kind really works the more bread you have the more dumplings you can make, I used one old loaf.

2) Milk or soy milk

3) sour cream 200ml, soycream or cream 200ml

3) two eggs

4) onion

5) spinach (frozen or fresh) => optional for dumplings

6) mushrooms (what ever kind you like)

7) a lemon, some chives or parsley or any other green garnish

8) pot with salted water and a sauce pan

Step 2: Makeing the Dumpling-dough

First cut your bread into small-ish pieces, but not smaller than the first limb of your ring finger or so.

Put all of it in a bowl, heat your milk and pour it over the bread. The amount of milk will vary depending on the amount of bread you have, keep adding milk till everything is moist but NOT wet, squeeze everything together with a spoon, the texture should be like on the picture, moist bread, not completely soaking wet.

Let sit for a little while. Glaze a whole chopped onion, put some of it into the bread bowl, keep half of it for the sauce.

Then add the eggs and spinach (you can leave that out or put in anything else, cheese for example), add some salt a little pepper and some lemon peel!!

If you have a person with big hands around, ask them to give the dough a good squeeze.

It is a bit messy to do it with you hands, make sure to wash them properly or put some gloves on ;O) it works a lot better than trying to make the batter with a spoon or something, at least that is my experience.

Step 3: Boil Your Dumplings

So, after the batter is well mixed get two big spoons, or just use your hands, I use spoons to make them all the same size.

Make sure you have your pot of boiling salted water on the stove. When you are ready, put down to simmer only.

Form balls in your required size and slide them into the hot water. You will notice that the dumplings will sink to the bottom, keep adding till you have the required amount. The dumplings will come up and float when done, then leave them in the hot water for maybe 2-4mins, poking them slightly to make them move around in the water, giving other some space, in case your pot is more deep than wide.Then take them out, put them on your plates.

The next step will be the sauce, I have to note, that it makes sense to make the sauce, while the dough sits, cause then you can pour the sauce over the done dumplings straight away.

Step 4: Make the Sauce

Take the pot with the glazed onions, add some more olive oil, throw in your mushrooms - stir fry them for a minute or so.

Then add sour cream, give it a good stir, add cream or soy cream, stir well and let simmer for about 5mins.

Add pepper, salt and caraway to your taste. Chop up chives, parsley or preferred garnish.

Step 5: Enjoy!

Cover dumplings in sauce and garnish - enjoy!

Hope you like it.

Ps: left over dumplings that have not been covered in sauce can be re-used the next day, just chop them up and stir fry them with some eggs.