Plum Dumplings

There are so many sweet memories from my childhood, and this is just one of them. I remember the cooking of my grandma very well. Simple frugal food with high quality basic ingredients is the secret. The recipe below is a simple old-fashioned plum dumpling. When I was a little girl, I would eat grandma’s dumplings every day. These mighty fruity treats are made particularly flavoursome with the addition of  cinnamon inside.

Ingredients:

1kg potatoes
750g plain flour
one egg
salt, cinnamon
ripe, pitted and washed plums or tinned Californian prunes
icing sugar
breadcrumbs
grounded walnuts or grinded poppy seeds

preparation time: 30 minutes
cooking time: 30 minutes

Method:

Cook the potatoes in water in their skin until they are done. Wash in cold water and peel. Using a hand grater grate peeled potatoes. Place them in a large bowl and combine with salt and flour and mix until you get soft dough. Place a large pot of salted water on to boil.

With well floured hands and using a rolling pin on a floured table spread the dough about 0.5cm thick. Cut into 2 inch squares.

Place a plum in the centre of each square adding sugar and cinnamon and fold in half, seal the edges and form balls. Moisten edges before crimping if necessary to seal. Carefully drop into boiling water. Repeat until all plums are in the water. Cook 30 minutes.

Meanwhile melt butter in a large bowl and place cooked and drained dumplings in the bowl and coat with melted butter.

You can serve dumplings with grinded poppy seeds, walnuts, even cocoa if desired. But the best ones are when you melt butter in a large pan add bread crumbs and brown.