I came from a background of German and Irish immigrants, but most of the recipes in my Mom's collection were from the German side of her family. My father's side of the family was 100% German, so my heritage is 1/3 Irish and 2/3 German. When my family gathered for dinner at my grandfather and grandmother's apartment, our meals consisted of food like pork roast, sauerbraten, rouladen, spaetzle, spinach, red cabbage, mashed potatoes, and "kartoffelklösse". Let's not forget gravy, and plenty of it. My family was fascinated with a potato dumpling. Not just any potato dumpling mind you, it was called "kartoffelklösse." As a child these dumplings took second place to nothing else that was served.
I know what you're thinking, what's a kartoffelklösse? The kartoffelklösse is a potato dumpling made from 1/3 mashed potatoes and 2/3 grated potatoes. Hey, I just realized, I'm 1/3 Irish and 2/3 German. A coincidence? I think not!
I started writing recipes so that they would not be lost forever. In the beginning it was all about my Mom and her recipes. Then it was grandmother's, grandfather's, aunts, uncles, bothers, sisters, family and friends. When does it end? So when researching old recipes, many stories about the "good old days" were told. This lead to more research, experimenting and tweaking recipes, editing and printing the recipes, taking photographs with my digital camera and formatting those pictures to suit my purposes.
At this time the digital camera revolution was taking hold. No more buying expensive film only to pay for processing when I was done. Desktop publishing was now affordable. Digital cameras with a whopping 2 mega pixels, built in flash, and auto focus were hitting the market. This was great in the beginning and then I realized that if I ever wanted to print the pictures I would need a much higher resolution camera. So I got a better camera. Then I realized that I would have to re-shoot the photographs taken with the previous low resolution camera.
As each new camera came out I had to make a decision to buy it, or accept the current photograph quality. Not a chance! So now I'm at a whopping 10 megapixels. When will it end? I kept making more and more recipes which were not always accurate, and some didn't really taste very good.
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| The things my grandmother used to make kartoffelklösse |
I started writing recipes so that they would not be lost forever. In the beginning it was all about my Mom and her recipes. Then it was grandmother's, grandfather's, aunts, uncles, bothers, sisters, family and friends. When does it end? So when researching old recipes, many stories about the "good old days" were told. This lead to more research, experimenting and tweaking recipes, editing and printing the recipes, taking photographs with my digital camera and formatting those pictures to suit my purposes.
At this time the digital camera revolution was taking hold. No more buying expensive film only to pay for processing when I was done. Desktop publishing was now affordable. Digital cameras with a whopping 2 mega pixels, built in flash, and auto focus were hitting the market. This was great in the beginning and then I realized that if I ever wanted to print the pictures I would need a much higher resolution camera. So I got a better camera. Then I realized that I would have to re-shoot the photographs taken with the previous low resolution camera.
As each new camera came out I had to make a decision to buy it, or accept the current photograph quality. Not a chance! So now I'm at a whopping 10 megapixels. When will it end? I kept making more and more recipes which were not always accurate, and some didn't really taste very good.
I'm not really a cook
I
am also not a writer so bear with me if I start to ramble on, misspell a
word or two, forget to spell check, or repeat something in a
different post. I am here to learn...
One of my first jobs in life was that of a short order cook for a snack shop at a major retailer’s store. From there I became a breakfast cook. Over the years I learned to cook breakfast and lunch like a pro.
One of my first jobs in life was that of a short order cook for a snack shop at a major retailer’s store. From there I became a breakfast cook. Over the years I learned to cook breakfast and lunch like a pro.
From
this humble beginning I soon learned that with my cooking background,
finding a job anywhere in the country was not that difficult. During my
early life I just couldn't stay put for a very long time. My backup was
four years of high school printing experience under my belt. With these two skill
sets I was able to travel and find work almost anywhere.
Later
in life I found myself working in the hospitality industry, evaluating
food at a whole new level. Not really a food critic, I was immersed in
the world of fine dining from the consumer side. I was able to travel
extensively throughout the United States and places like Alaska, Aruba,
Bermuda, Puerto Rico, Grand Cayman's, and Mexico. Being on the road is
not as fun as it would seem, often I couldn't wait to get back home and
enjoy some real comfort food. Not many restaurants serve meatloaf and real
mashed potatoes.
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| Meatloaf, mashed potatoes, green beans |
From
there using my printing and marketing experience I again found myself
back in the restaurant, banquet, and food manufacturing business. I soon
discovered that I was becoming a foodie!
So what is kartoffelklösse? The simple answer is potato dumplings. To
make my grandmothers kartoffelklösse you're going
to need some tools. A large canning pot is a necessity for boiling
water, a potato peeler to peel the potatoes, a grater with a very fine
grating surface to grate 2/3 of the potatoes, a potato masher to mash
1/3 of the potatoes, a very finely woven cloth sugar sack, to squeeze
the water out of grated potatoes. Some buttered croutons for placing in
the center of the kartoffelklösse (3 croutons per dumpling is the magic
number) and many more for snacking on.
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| Mixing mashed potatoes with dry potato pulp for Kartoffelklösse |
Once
you have these tools together you're going to need some meat to serve
with them. Generally you have only four choices; pork roast (best
choice), sauerbraten, rouladen or turkey to make gravy for the kartoffelklösse. No canned or jar gravies allowed here. There is no
recipe here just 2/3 grated and 1/3rd mashed. The 2/3rds of the
potatoes had to be grated quickly, or they would begin to oxidize and
turn from white to a grey green color (Grüne Klöße).
I
can assume that you don't have any heavy-duty sugar or flour sacks lying around
the house, so you will need to find someone who can sew, go to a fabric
store and buy some canvas. You make the bag out of the canvas that is
about 1 foot wide by 1-1/2 feet deep. Our friend Lin made us the sack pictured above. The seams must be triple stitched
to withstand the pressure when squeezing the liquid out of the grated
potatoes, leaving you with the dry potato pulp. In Germany you can buy a
ready-made Kloßsack or find a machine called a "Thüringer Kloßpresse."
Before
I go on with this story you will need some history. My grandfather and
grandmother emigrated from Germany in the 1920's. They lived in a two
bedroom, one bath apartment with a very tiny kitchen that was about
12'x5'. The wooden porch adjacent to the back kitchen door made a great
cooler in the winter months. These cold winter months were considered kartoffelklösse time. Her sink and counter top literally had no
workspace. The kitchen table, a two top, was incredibly small but made a
nice prep area. My grandma had an ingenious method of dealing with the
massive pileup of dishes, glassware, pots and pans. The dirty ones were
secreted behind the bathtub shower curtain to be dealt with later.
For
the men there was one job that only they could do. That job was to
squeeze all of the water out of the grated potatoes in the sack. When
finished the potatoes formed a dry pulp ball. It had to be so dry that
your hands felt like they had flour on them. Sill interested? Stay tuned.
Sunday Dinners
Before
I go on, a little history. When my grandparents grew up in Germany,
Sunday meals were very important. Grandma told me that if there was meat
in the house, the men ate it first. The women were very creative with
potatoes. Sunday was the day to make kartoffelklösse.
I
later learned that my grandfather and grandmother would peel 20-24
pounds of potatoes the night before and keep them in cold water on the
back porch until the next day. As I said before, the men in my family, as it was in my
grandparent’s family, had one job that only they could do. That
job was to squeeze all of the water out of the grated potatoes in the
cloth sugar sack.
My cousins lived nearby and would often be there to help squeeze the potatoes dry. Sometimes I would arrive early enough to help. While squeezing the water from the potatoes we always tried to come up with an easier way to squeeze the potato pulp dry. Why not put them in the bag and drive a car over them? The potatoes had to be squeezed so hard, that very often your finger tip would poke through the cloth. Grandma would have to sew the rip in the sack, to save the dry pulp from falling back into the bowl of potato water. When every drop was squeezed out, the potatoes formed a dry pulp ball. It had to be so dry that your hands felt like they had flour on them.
Normally
grandma would make enough kartoffelklösse so that we could each have
two, or three during dinner. This would generally leave about a half dozen to take
home to slice and fry in butter for breakfast. I just had to learn the art of making these dumplings before it was too late...
Croutons
I'm
not going to lie to you, making kartoffelklösse (dumplings) and all the
trimmings is no simple task and often an all-day affair, if you're working
alone. Making kartoffelklösse can be and should be a family event.
Working together with a clear written plan can make it a fun family
gathering to enjoy a really great meal. There are many things that can
be done in advance to move the process along.
Croutons!
Slightly stale bread, bathed in butter and baked to golden perfection
should be done at least the day before. There are two major drawbacks to
making croutons in advance. One is that you might be tempted to sample
them after baking them. It's a lot like Christmas cookies, if you don't
keep them under lock and key until ready to use, they will be gone when
you need them.
As children we would search for them as soon as we got to grandma's house. She knew that and made plenty of them. Three croutons go into the center of each and every kartoffelklösse. You'll also want enough croutons left to sprinkle on the flattened dumplings before adding the gravy. Make plenty because they're great on salads too. Again there is no right or wrong recipe here. You want them to be golden in color with a buttery crunch.
Everyone had a job
If
Grandma (Muttie) was making kartoffelklösse, almost everyone had a job.
My Dad was in charge of bringing the wine. He always brought two
bottles of a German white wine called "Weber Zeller Schwartz Katz."
Grandma
needed fresh russet potatoes. If she bought 24 pounds of potatoes, 8
pounds would be reserved for mashing, and 16 pounds for grating. I must
remind you that this is no simple task.
The
water from the squeezed out potatoes must be reserved. The starch from
the grated potatoes sits in the bottom of the potato water. The next
step is to carefully dump the potato water without losing the starch on
the bottom of the bowl. It's like panning for gold. When all of the
water is removed from the bowl, all that remains is the paste like
starch. This will be added to the mashed potatoes later.
Grandma
always said that somewhere in Germany there was a machine that would
squeeze the potatoes dry, but she never had one. I just had to find this
machine. One day I called the German Consulate in Chicago. A very
pleasant German woman answered the telephone. I asked her if she was, in
fact from Germany. She told me that she was from Hamburg and asked how
she could help me. Judging from her reaction, I guess nobody ever asked
her if she knew of a machine that made kartoffelklösse. She told me that
they just buy the kartoffelklösse in the store, or they buy a mix in a
box. She told me the name of the boxed product. I told her I was looking
for authentic kartoffelklösse and not a boxed version. She had never
heard of a kartoffelklösse machine.
The Golden Kartoffelklösse Award
To
us kids Kartoffelklösse was, without a doubt, our all-time favorite.
The meat and vegetables served with them was at best a secondary target.
In our minds the primary purpose for cooking meat was to make rich
gravy for the Kartoffelklösse. We loved Kartoffelklösse so much that one
year my cousins and I made a bet. The bet was actually a simple one.
Who could eat the most Kartoffelklösse in a single sitting? Being young
we did not totally understand the consequences of our wager as we
sauntered up to the table, and without a second thought, eyes shifting
left and right, prepared to do battle. Our parents had no idea what was
about to take place.
As
we took our seats grandma brought the first platter of Kartoffelklösse
to the dinner table. We all bowed our heads as one of my cousins led us
in a German prayer.
"Komm, Herr Jesu, und sei unser Gast und segne was du uns bescheret hast. Amen." In English the translation would be "Come, Lord Jesus, and be our guest and bless what you have bestowed on us. Amen". With the dinner prayer being said, we were on our way to setting our own personal kartoffelklösse eating records. The contest began.  About twenty-five minutes into the meal, my uncle, who still had no idea what was happening, asked grandma for some more kartoffelklösse. She got up and went to the kitchen to get them. When she returned, an empty platter in hand, well let’s just say that the family father figures were not real happy campers. The fact is that they had missed their own allotment of kartoffelklösse. In retrospect and considering the situation, I think their rage was very well controlled.
Before
moving forward you need to know one more thing. Each crouton stuffed kartoffelklösse had some considerable weight to them. Eating more than
two of these can create an uncomfortable feeling in your belly. To the
best of my recollection the children consumed more than our fair share. I
don’t remember who actually won the bet, but the final score was kids
about 20, parents 10. This contest was never to happen again, not because we didn't want it to, because the
parents kept an eye on us from that day forward.
Making Kartoffelklösse - The Process
I
said it before, making Kartoffelklösse is no easy task. I could go out
and buy a box mix, but that would never be the same. Tradition is not
something that should be messed with. Making kartoffelklösse brings the
family together for a great Sunday meal. To fully enjoy the meal, all
cell phones should be turned off and talking, rather than texting should
be encouraged and enforced.
In
my opinion kartoffelklösse is best served with pork gravy. Next, the
grated potatoes are mixed with the mashed potatoes. With wet hands take a
handful of the potato mixture and place three croutons in the center.
Roll the potato mixture around the croutons and roll into the shape of
a snowball. After bringing a large pot of salted water to a boil, the kartoffelklösse are gently
lowered into the water where they immediately sink to the bottom.
As the one watching the dumplings cook, you also get the pleasure of making sure that they are done. You remove one dumpling from the water, cut it in half, pour some gravy over it and taste to make sure that the potato is cooked in the center and not raw.
To
serve the kartoffelklösse you press down on them with a fork to expose
the croutons. Place a couple of slices of pork roast next to them and
smother both in rich pork gravy. If you care to, put some vegetables on
your plate as a garnish.
If
you're lucky you might have some leftovers for breakfast. Sliced about a
1/4 inch think and pan fried in butter is a perfect companion to fried,
scrambled, poached, or soft boiled eggs.
As I said before, my grandmother lived in an apartment building. The lower
street level was shops and the second and third floors were
apartments. After my grandfather died and my grandmother was living
alone, the building’s demographics began to change. As tenants moved or
passed away, a younger tenant base moved in. During the winter months,
“kartoffelklösse season,” as soon as you opened the front door to the
building, the unbelievable smell of kartoffelklösse and whatever meat
grandma was cooking hit you like a blast of good old fashioned home
cooking. Often some of the tenants of the building would ask what
grandma was cooking. It had the intoxicating effect of a snake charmers
flute.
When
my grandmother passed away in about 1982, there were five people in my
family that knew how to make kartoffelklösse. My aunt, two cousins, my
sister and me. All of us had learned to make them from my grandmother.
Tradition! I inherited her brass grater, an enamel coated canning pot,
her hand held potato masher and the memories of some really great
dinners. I should mention at this point that often when kartoffelklösse
was served, it would either come out of the kitchen a very dark greenish
grey color (grüne klöße), or a lighter color, closer to white, but
never really white. The color, my grandmother explained had something to
do with how old the potatoes were and also how fast you processed them
from raw potatoes into kartoffelklösse. It’s called oxidation. You have
to understand that kartoffelklösse is great whether they are white,
gray, or green-gray. They just don't look as good when they are gray.
The Machine
After
my grandmother passed away, my wife and I were the only ones that still
made traditional Kartoffelklösse, using her grater, her sugar sack, her
potato masher, her canning pot, etc. Tradition!
Before
I continue a little more history. I can’t think of one person in our
family that didn’t like kartoffelklösse. As we children got older and
began the cycle of dating and finally getting married, the new additions to the
family just could not understand what all the fuss was about. We just
couldn’t understand anyone who didn’t like kartoffelklösse.
My Mother never made Kartoffelklösse because she never had the right
tools. She did however make the best pork roast, rouladen, sauerbraten,
and the best gravy for them and plenty of it. So it was collaboration with Mom
and my wife in charge of the meat and gravy.
It
was only a matter of time before someone would mess with tradition. As I
said before, there has always been a rumor that somewhere in Germany
there is a machine that allegedly makes kartoffelklösse. My sister, who
is notorious for messing with tradition, stated that she had found the
machine. She told me that when she made kartoffelklösse with this
machine, they were not only great tasting, but also pure white every
time. “Blasphemy,” I told her.
My
father played this rivalry out for all it was worth. As I said before,
the color of the kartoffelklösse has no effect on the taste. It is said
that we eat with our eyes first, so the color can have a negative visual impact.
So
off we went, clear across a couple of towns, to my sisters, to debunk the "pure white kartoffelklösse" myth. When I arrived, I approached the machine just in
time to watch my sister grate and extract the water from the potatoes.
She explained that she had made some adjustments to the traditional
recipe and added lemon juice to help keep the potatoes white (certainly
not in grandma's traditional recipe). She also used a microwave to heat
up the mashed potatoes when ready to mix with the dry potatoes.
The
machine, a Waring Professional Juicer, not only grated the potatoes
with a stainless steel circular grating blade to the desired
consistency, the stainless steel basket containing the grated potato
pulp, was spinning like a centrifuge. This process would extract every
drop of moisture from the potatoes, leaving only the desired very dry
white pulp behind. While the basket was spinning, a bowl placed beneath
the spout collects the liquid from the potatoes. At the bottom of that
liquid you find the raw potato starch.
My
sister said that she perfected the art of freezing kartoffelklösse, so
you can have them anytime that you want. Imagine that, kartoffelklösse
out of the freezer.
It
was a miracle. But how did they taste? Just like mine and Grandma’s,
with a lot less work. The juicer was about
$199.00, and not in my budget at that time. For the next two years my
wife and I made them the traditional way, by hand. My father and mother
kept this rivalry alive, because they got to eat kartoffelklösse twice as
often as before. I began saving my pocket change until I could afford the
juicer. So there you have it. kartoffelklösse, no longer an all-day prep
event, but you still have plenty of dishes to wash. You've just got to
get a Waring Professional Juicer and begin making the greatest potatoes
on earth.
A
couple of months ago I found the German machine and it's called the
"Thüringer Kloßpresse." It looks like a small version of a wine press.
It's made of stainless steel and has a screw attached to a "T" handle.
It comes with a cloth sack. I searched the internet to find one
available in the US without any luck. I finally found it.
I
don’t want to mislead you, we didn't eat kartoffelklösse, or as we
called them “kartuff’s,” all the time. In the colder winter months kartuff’s was something to look forward to. In the summer we simply
substituted spätzle, a dumpling, for the kartoffelklösse. When my
grandmother made kartuff’s, it was generally once a month. On rare
occasions, Grandma would give us more than one meat choice. Pork roast
and rouladen or sauerbraten and pork roast. If you’re going to make
kartoffelklösse, you just must serve it with the right meat. Preparing
this meal, even with this machine is an all-day event. If I were to rank
the gravy best suited for kartuff’s, it would just have to be pork:
After
pushing yourself away from the table after consuming your allotment of kartoffelklösse (kartoffelklöße in German), general you didn’t move very
quickly. After dinner, my Grandma, my Mother and my Aunt cleared the
dining table, while the men moved to the living room to unbuckle their
belts and talk about whatever it was that adults talked about back then.
My Grandfather would turn on the radio, “a beautiful wood cabinet floor
model Grundig,” tune into the short or long wave bands and listen to
some German music. The HI-FI sound emitted from the Grundig was
incredible.
My grandmother, my mother and my aunt cleared the table, bringing all of
the dirty dishes to the kitchen. Grandma didn’t have a dishwasher and I
don’t even think they were invented yet. Grandma had a tablecloth that
was white vinyl on one side, used for dining, and green felt on the
reverse side. As soon as the green felt side was up, the men returned to
the table. They would take out a deck of Pinochle cards and begin to
play. They were very vocal when playing cards. To the best of my
recollection they didn’t ever swear.
The
children, weather permitting, either went across the street to the
park, or made forts in one of the bedrooms, taping bed sheets to the
painted walls, all with the approval of our grandmother. While we were
playing there was frequently an outburst in the dining room where one of
the fathers would slam down a card that was higher than the one that
was played. This was called a “smear”. If someone clearly underbid they
would be called a “Piker.” Meanwhile the ladies were in the kitchen
making, are you ready for this? A snack! Once the card game ended the men
would leave the table while the women set it again. Stick with me there
is more to follow…
I
sure hope so, because about 1-1/2 hours after having a kartoffelklösse
dinner, grandma, my mom and my aunt started bringing out coffee, dessert
and a snack! No kidding? Once the coffee was made, she brought out
some sliced rye bread, water rolls, unsalted butter (salts not good for
you), a meat deli tray with most selections ending in "wurst". To
balance our diet she had another platter of sliced cheese, Limburger
cheese, Herring in sour cream with pickles and onions, and Cannibal
Burger (Steak Tartare).
For
dessert Grandma almost always had her famous Streusel kuchen coffee
cake, oatmeal and chocolate cookies, and my Aunts famous mile-high lemon feather sponge cake, with lemon cream frosting. The fact that it was
light as a feather made it the perfect complement to kartoffelklösse
dinner. My wife and I have tried to make this cake several times in the
past and we are always told that it tastes just like my Aunts, but
wasn't as high. Does size really matter? Apparently with the cake it
does. I often wonder if it was really ever that tall, or as children it
was the tallest cake we had ever seen.
By
the time our snack was done, Grandma had already wrapped up our
allotment of Kartoffelklösse for the next morning’s breakfast. There is
just nothing like it.
Tradition
The
fact is that making traditional Kartoffelklösse by hand is "hard work."
When I found out that there was a Kartoffelklösse museum (YouTube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kFZ4LSk8ZHc in Germany,
I soon realized that I wasn't alone, or was I? While watching the video
I saw "the machine," you know, the one, the "Thüringer Kloßpresse,"
that squeezes all of the water from the grated potato pulp. I just had
to tell my sister's, brother, children, aunt, cousin... everybody. What
was I expecting?
My
sister was the first to respond with "it’s prehistoric... you still
need muscles to turn that crank….and then clean all that potato residue
out of the cotton cloth. Some things are better left in museums." People
today really prefer to have lighter fare, they don’t do hard manual
labor like the old Germans did. I don’t see Grandma’s children's,
children's, children (great grand kids) making them."
Actually,
a couple of years ago, I invited one of my sisters over to watch my two
daughters make Kartoffelklösse. Everybody had a job to do. My wife made
the pork roast and gravy, my sister opened the wine as she managed the
job. My daughters made the Kartoffelklösse, and I took pictures and
video. Even with the professional juicer doing what use to be manual
labor, it is still a big project ,and creates a lot of dirty dishes.So
how do I pass on these traditions? By making more Kartoffelklösse!
That's how.
If you've ever watched "Fiddler on the Roof" there is a song about "Tradition." The lyrics go like this:
"Who, day and night, must scramble for a living,
Feed a wife and children, say his daily prayers?
And who has the right, as master of the house,
To have the final word at home?
The Papa, the Papa! Tradition.
The Papa, the Papa! Tradition."
"And how do we keep our balance? That I can tell you in one word: Tradition!" Fiddler on the Roof. How many times did Grandma make Kartoffelklösse?
My
Aunt and cousins lived in the same town as my grandmother, so helping
her when she made the klösse (klay-za) often fell on their shoulders. I
would often get their in time to watch, or help during the grating and
squeezing portion of the project. I decided that since my cousin was
their most often, what did they talk about?
My
cousin told me that my Grandmother started making klösse when she was
12 years old. By the time she was 75, and the fact that she made klösse
every Sunday since she was 12, she had to have made them at least 3,000
times, by hand! Why did she do that you might be wondering? Because her family loved them.
Even
with that kind of experience making klösse, often she would come to the
dining room from the kitchen with a platter of dark gray, leaden
"cannonballs." She would apologize for the dark color saying that the
potatoes we old, or that there was to much, or to little starch in them.
As you know, figuring out how much starch is in the potatoes was an
art/science of critical concern, because if you didn't figure
correctly, you had a disaster on your hands. To us the color of the klösse didn't matter because they always tasted great.
© TMelle 1998-2011
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