Breakfast: Drop dumplings

While being vegetarian, I was unable to enjoy bacon for breakfast(imagine that), which I usually do on weekends.  How to make up for this loss?  Well, I decided to make something different instead.

About a year ago, some friends of mine found an old cookbook while cleaning up a relative's house.  How old?  1920s.  It was a small book put together by an Illinois Ladie's club, and what a fun time machine!  Some of the recipes are just crazy (as in who would eat that?), some are just oddly printed (as in ingredients that were assumed to be obvious are not listed), some sound pretty awesome.

The recipe for drop dumplings appears below:

Super-simple.  And super-simplified, which can be confusing.  Basically, mix all ingredients.  My batter is pictured on the left, if you're trying to figure out what "stiff batter" means.  Basically, it's sticky and goopy, but not runny. If you scoop some of it up, it shouldn't drip off right away.

I added 1/8 C sugar to the recipe, because I like a sweet breakfast, and was sort of thinking pancake alternative.  1/8 C added just a hint of sweetness, which was just what I wanted.

I felt "drop from teaspoon" was extremely vague.  I double-checked with my mother that dumplings are usually boiled (she grew up in an area where people ate those kinds of things), just in case they were fried or something.  And then I decided that a teaspoon would result in a tiny little dumplings, which is nice, but I wanted something larger.  So I used a tablespoon (in this case, I'm talking about the larger vs. smaller spoons that come in a silverware set, not measuring spoons, in case you just grew up calling them "spoons" like I did). My dumplings came out just the size I wanted.  They also came out with uncooked centers.   (Oooooh.  I get it now.)  Lucky for me, though, I live in the 21st century and not the 1920s, so I just popped those under-done dumplings in the microwave for 30 seconds and finished cooking them that way.  It resulted in a different texture, dryer and sponge-ier  than the outer portions which had cooked completely in boiling water.  This didn't seem to bother anyone, but if I were making these for a fancy brunch or a competition, I might want to avoid that.  Oh, and a tip for getting the dumplings into the water and nicely shaped-- use 2 spoons.  Scoop from one spoon to another before finally dropping the resulting clump into the boiling water.

Serve with jam, syrup, and/or powdered sugar.  Or gravy.  I even ate some with leftover Strawberry Marinara (see previous blog).  Basically, they're pretty versatile.

Nearly two years later… 

I just had the chance to make dumplings with my mother-in-law, and I realized what I did wrong here. The trick is that dumplings technically STEAM, not boil.  You steam them in boiling water (or broth, as I did with my mother-in-law), but you don't just wait for them to float.  You have to give them 10- 15 minutes of time in the steam.  So drop them in your boiling water, then cover it up and let them steam for about 15 minutes, and you shouldn't need to use your microwave.  Also they should expand a bit, so maybe a teaspoon wouldn't be too small.  Things you learn!