Potato Dumplings With Plums

Those plums up there? Those plums look like ho me to me. The definitely taste like home. Huuuuge difference from the usual plum you can buy here in the grocery stores…

Since I already made enough plum jam for the next months, I decided to make my second favorite plum treat from back home. Potato dumplings with plums, or how we say it in Croatian: knedle sa šljivama.
I used to be intimidated by stuff like this, or gnocchi…now I know they are actually quite easy to make. The trick is in making sure you don’t add too much flour.

I don’t have an exact measured recipe, but I will write down exactly what and how I do.

Potato Dumplings With Plums

8 to 10 medium potatoes
3 eggs
flour
3 tbsp of butter
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 cup of oil
1/3 cup of bread crumbs
plums
sugar cubes
spiced rum (or rum extract in regular rum or gin)

First I boil the whole potatoes and once they are done and cooled just a bit I peel them. Then I smash the potatoes and make a little hill with a hole in the middle. In it I put eggs, butter and 1/4 tsp of salt. With your fingers start mixing it all together and slowly you start incorporating flour into it. How much flour you will need depends on how much potatoes will take, so just start with a cup or two and go from there. You just need the dough to stop being sticky, the less flour you use the better dumplings will be. Kneed the dough for good 5 minutes and then let it rest for 5. Roll it to 1/2″ thickness and cut into squares about 3×3 inches.

On each square put a seeded plum with 1 sugar cube or 1 teaspoon of sugar in it. Pour 1/2 to 1 tsp of rum on the sugar and then close up the plum and pull the dough over the plum. Form a ball and roll it making sure it is sealed good.

In a large pot boil water with salt and then lower the heat to medium, like you would for cooking gnocchi. Put a few dumplings in at a time (I put 6 at a time)and boil until they swim on top or for about 10 minutes.

Traditionally in Croatia we eat these with breadcrumbs on top. It is really simple. In a pan heat up the oil and then put some breadcrumbs on it and stir for a few minutes.

When they darken just a bit they are done and this is what you pour over your cooked dumplings. Just like this:

Some people like using less and some put more on theirs, spme even roll the whole dumpling in the pan with the breadcrumbs. This is the perfect ratio and way for me. You can try out both ways and decide for yourself!

Make sure you finish them up by sprinkling some sugar on top, and also that you didn’t eat for a while so you can stuff yourself in this yum-mines!