Recipe 5 - Goat cheese dumplings with fried cepes

The book
I didn't have much time to decide on a recipe this morning, because we had slept in, were hungry and were trying to get out the door asap to go to Ranelagh for a weekend brunch (Dillinger's - yummy!). So I went for a book where I knew I would be able to find something good - fast. Tirol kocht! by Lois Hechenblaikner, Karin Longariva and Christoph Wagner (ISBN 3-85498-296-8) is one of the few cookbooks that we really use every once in a while - and even if I don't end up using a recipe from it, I always enjoyed just looking through it. It won an award for best regional cuisine cookbook and it's easy to see why - it's beautifully made with great photos of food and laughing chefs, who look like they are having a good time, and the recipes all sound really, really good. I've done several foodie trips to South Tyrol, so just looking at the picture of the "Schlutzkrapfen" brings back fond old memories and I also like the book, because Roland likes it, i.e. he cooks the fennel soup with tuna filet and the leek risotto with rabbit filet for me, when I'm lucky. As it's a Tyrolian cookbook the vocabulary for ingredients might be a bit odd for Germans (Brötchen sind Semmeln, Hefe ist Germ, Quark ist Topfen), but luckily I grew up in Bavaria and spent many vacations in Austria, so this doesn't cause any issues for me. Main issues, as always with German cookbooks, is rather that ingredients that are easy to get in South Tyrol, Berlin or Munich might not be supermarket staples in Ireland. The dumpling ingredients weren't too exotic, though.

The ingredients
For the dumplings:
200g goat cheese
2 egg yolks
75g soft butter
Salt, fresh ground pepper
Pinch of nutmeg
3 bread rolls, crust removed
125ml whipping cream
70g flour
40g semolina
2 egg whites

For the mushrooms:
4 little cepes
Some olive oil
Salt

For serving:
40g butter
40g parmesan cheese

The recipe
Beat butter and egg yolks with salt, pepper and nutmeg until foamy. Pass goat cheese through a sieve and add it. Cut the bread into small cubes and soak it in the whipping cream.
Add bread, flour and semolina to the butter and egg mixture and mix it thoroughly.
Let the dumpling dough rest for about an hour. Whip the egg whites until stiff and add to the dough.
Form dumplings with two tablespoons, put them into a big pot with boiling salt water and simmer for about 10 minutes.
Clean the mushrooms, cut them into leave-thin slices and fry in a pan with olive oil until crisp. Add salt and pepper to taste.
When the dumplings are ready, remove them from the pot and drain off excess water. Serve with the mushrooms, melted butter and parmesan cheese.

The testing
I was a bit afraid to try dumplings with semolina again, knowing that my bad Knödelkarma might make things difficult, as happened with the last recipe. Semolina is not one of the main ingredients here, so the risk was lower (at least, that's what I was hoping) and shying away from a problem doesn't solve it, right?
The type of goat cheese wasn't specified at all, which seems a bit dangerous, given that this could mean anything from a St. Tola log to Knockadrinna or Halloumi. I assumed it must be a soft cheese and bought a Ryefield goat cheese at Sheridan's cheesemongers and it turned out to be a good choice. I couldn't get cepes, so went for chanterelles and ordinary mushrooms instead. As I wasn't using the specified cepes anyway, I also decided to use a lot more mushrooms and I also cut them into bigger slices. Just four little cepes seemed a bit thrifty. I still had semolina at home, thankfully (not an Irish supermarket staple...), but if I ever run out of it the Polish supermarket would stock it.
Assuming that chef Hansi Baumgartner, whose recipe this is, was not using substandard supermarket bread rolls for his dumplings in Tyrol, I opted for a 400g loaf of La Brea Bakery country white sourdough bread. I knew it would not turn into a soggy mush after the crust was removed and the remainder cut into little cubes and I hoped the sourdough would add a bit more flavor to it as well. Removing the bread crust was weird! It felt like I was skinning a little animal. I've never skinned one, but this is surely coming close. I might have added a bit more cream than called for, because I didn't measure it and added it by instinct.
This time egg and butter were behaving nicely and didn't act up like the last time. The dough was a bit denser than I had expected, but turned out fine in the end.
The mushrooms I fried in three batches, keeping in mind Julia Child's advice: "Don't crowd the mushrooms!".

The result
YES! Perfect dumplings! Served them with the melted butter and parmesan and a green side salad with vinaigrette, accompanied with a glass (ahem, bottle...) of the excellent 2009 Schloss Gobelsburg Grüner Veltliner from Austria, thanks to Chris from Corkscrew.

The verdict
Oh my! It was like a party in my mouth!! The consistency of the dumplings was perfect - firm, yet fluffy at the same time. The flavors were well balanced, the goat cheese not too overwhelming. Just as I had hoped, the sourdough bread added a bit of extra flavor. The mushrooms and the parmesan were great as well and the wine a good match (No surprise there, because the three Corkscrew guys always give great recommendations for food-wine pairing). This is definitely a new favorite of mine and I'm looking forward to trying out a few varieties of this recipe, e.g. with different breads, cheeses, flours, herbs added, etc. The ingredients are easy to get, preparation is easy as well and the results are great. What more could one ask for?

PS: For people living in Dublin, let me add that Una is back to Saturday's Temple Bar market with the fantastic "Le Levain" bread (after a break of several - very loooong - weeks). So if you would like to try this recipe with a great pain au levain or a chestnut sourdough, this is the place to go to. The stand is right next to Denis Healy's in front of the Button Factory. Flavors would be much more intense with those breads and it would be a shame to get rid of the crust, but I still like the idea.