Big North German "Dumpling": Mehlbeutel

This is an extra large German dumpling dish, with a pretty dense texture. The standard German word for this dish is "Mehlbeutel,"* which means "flour bag." It gets its name from these large dumplings being boiled inside cloth flour bags long ago. The dumplings are from the marshy Dithmarschen region** of Schleswig-Holstein. The standard German form, "Mehlbeutel," was taken from the actual Low German form of that region, "Mehlbüdel." While more typically a dessert, served with fruit compote, it can also be used as a lunch dish served with bacon or ham and boiled potatoes, along with some mustard on the side, which is how I prefer it. The basic idea for this dish most likely came from a combination of German merchant sailors returning from England with various recipes for English puddings*** they had tried while there, and from English merchant sailors leaving such recipes in German ports when docked there. This dish itself seems to date back to around 1700. Some Germans call the dish "Großer Hans" (Big John/Jack).

 

Serve as a lunch dish with the smoked pork you've cooked, boiled potatoes and mustard, or serve as a dessert dish with cherry compote (see below), strawberry jam, or just some melted butter drizzled over each serving and then dusted with powdered sugar. If you don't have black currants, you can use all raisins. The meat must be smoked to give the dumpling the proper flavor as it cooks in the water used to cook the meat.

 

Ingredients: 

 

4 cups flour, more if needed, + a couple of tablespoons for the towel

4 eggs, separated 

2 cups milk (a little more IF needed)

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

5 tablespoons melted butter

1/4 cup sugar

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/3 cup raisins

1/4 cup black currants

smoked slab bacon in a piece or smoked ham shanks or smoked pork shoulder in a piece or smoked ham hocks 

water for cooking the smoked pork & Mehlbeutel

For cherry compote: 

1/2 cup dried cherries

1 teaspoon lemon juice

1 to 3 tablespoons sugar (depending upon desired sweetness)

1/3 cup water 

First you'll need a linen towel or large cloth napkin (not stringy in any way). Boil the towel in plain water, absolutely NO soap or cleaning agents of any kind. Let the towel boil for about 10 minutes; afterward, drain the water, let the towel cool so that you can wring it out and then spread it out so that it can dry somewhat (I let it dry completely, so I do this part well in advance of making the dumpling, but it doesn't have to be totally dry).

 

In a pot (you will need a pretty good size pot), add whatever smoked meat you'll be using, like for instance: slab bacon, ham shank, pork shoulder, ham hocks, and cover the meat with water. Bring to a good steady simmer and let cook while you prepare the dumpling. In a large bowl, mix together the flour, 4 egg yolks, milk, baking powder, melted butter, salt, sugar, raisins and black currants. In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites until peaks form. Fold the egg whites into the batter/dough. 

 

On a flat surface, spread the towel out, sprinkle a couple of tablespoons of flour into the middle part of the towel and smooth it out. Add the dough to the middle of the towel, then pull up the corners of the towel around the dough (the dough shouldn't be like bread dough or pizza dough, but it shouldn't be like pancake batter, either). I use some kitchen twine to tie around the towel corners (you should leave a little room for the dough to expand at the top). Germans often tie or fasten the handle of a large kitchen spoon or ladle to the "bundle" and suspend the bundle from this in the pot to keep the dumpling from sitting on the bottom of the pot. I have not done this "step," and I found that after putting the dumpling bundle into the boiling water, that it floated in a matter of a few minutes, just like other dumplings do (I moved it around occasionally so that it wouldn't just sit on the bottom of the pot), but you can leave the meat in the pot, and this will keep the dumpling from resting on the bottom anyhow. Add a little more water after you put the dumpling into the pot (and at any time during the cooking process, if the water level drops too much), and turn the heat to low (or to a point on your stove where the water maintains a gentle simmer). Remove the meat to a plate when it is done, but you won't be arrested by the "Mehlbeutel police" if you keep the meat in the pot for the duration of cooking the dumpling. I occasionally use a large spoon to "dunk" the dumpling "bundle" into the water and to turn it. The dumpling needs to cook for about two hours, then remove it from the pot, take the string off and peel the corners of the towel down and set the dumpling onto a plate without the towel for 5 to 10 minutes (see photo three, below). While the dumpling rests briefly, cut or distribute the meat to however many serving plates you need, then slice the dumpling into wedges (see photos below). Serve as a dessert or lunch dish as mentioned above. 

 

* English has words related to the component parts of its German cousin's compound "Mehlbeutel:" "Mehl" in English is "meal;" that is, meal the flour or ground up grain, and "Beutel" is from the same Old Germanic source that gave English "bud (of a plant)," with German "Butte" being an old form that meant "bud, the housing or casing for plant seeds."

 

** Dithmarschen is a region in the state of Schleswig-Holstein where a rather large amount of marshland along its North Sea coast has been reclaimed from the sea. The city of Heide is the district seat. It was from areas like this all along the North Sea coast that elements of Germanic tribes began sailing to Britain nearly 1600 years ago and took over a substantial part of land there, which then came to be named for one of those Germanic tribes, the Angles of "Angle-land;" that is, "England."  

 

*** Generally, English puddings date back centuries and originally referred to chopped meats and other ingredients stuffed into animal stomachs or intestines and then boiled or baked. The term then moved to flour, liquid and often egg mixtures (some containing fruit and spices and sometimes rum or other liquor) that were boiled, baked or steamed until firmed into a more solidified form. In American English, puddings are flavored custard-like mixtures that are commonly thickened with cornstarch and they are usually refrigerated. 

 

In photos 1, 2 and 4 below, "Mehlbeutel" with smoked pork shoulder, boiled potatoes and mustard; photo 3, cooked "Mehlbeutel" with the towel removed (the towel I used was not smooth, so it naturally left the pattern on the Mehlbeutel), and you can see the size of the dumpling, as that is a full size dinner plate; photo 5, "Mehlbeutel" as a dessert with melted butter and cherry compote ... 

 

 

 

 

 

WORD HISTORY:

Dusk-This word is distantly related to the main part of "obfuscate," a word English borrowed from Latin, and it's more closely related to "dust," a word from the Germanic roots of English. It goes back to Indo European "dheu," which had the notion of "smoke, haze, dust," with the extended form "dheus(k)." This gave Old Germanic "dusko," with much the same meaning, and this produced the adjective "duskaz," meaning "of dark color, dark colored," and this gave Old English (Anglo-Saxon) "dox" (swarthy, dark haired). This then became "dosc/dosk," by which time the meaning had altered slightly to "not bright in color, to the dark side in color, shadowy," and this then became "duske," before the 'e' was dropped, and the noun meaning became "trending toward full darkness, not complete darkness" (the noun originally meant "darkness," circa 1400, and it was rendered as "dusknesse"). While not all that common in modern times, the verb form came into being (1300s?) as "dusken" ("to get dark"). The adjective "dusky" is from the mid 1500s, meaning "dim in light, near darkness."