Polish Potato Dumplings aka Kluski Ziemniaczane are extremely simple to make, very tasty and super budget friendly. We used to make them a lot when growing up. There were three kids in the house and both my brother and I were over 6 ft tall and heavily involved in sports. In other words, we both needed calories and we ate a lot.
To make potato dumplings, all you need is potatoes, flour and 20 minutes.
Here is my Mama’s recipe. She doesn’t use the eggs here and we usually add bacon or polish cottage cheese (or both) for garnish.
Ingredients
- 1 kg or 2lbs potatoes (I like Russets or Yukon Gold)
- 3 cups all-purpose flour
- a flat teaspoon of salt and pepper
- bacon (optional)
- Polish cottage cheese (optional)
- 1 onion (optional)
Step by step instructions:
Step 1
First peel the potatoes and wash them.
Next, grate the potatoes on a very fine grater (you can also throw them into a blender or food processor).
Step 2
After grating, you can pour the potatoes into a fine-mesh strainer over a bowl and let the water drain for a few minutes or use a tablespoon (just like I do) to take the excess water out. It all depends how watery are your potatoes. It’s essential to drain released juice from the potato mixture before adding the flour, so the dumplings are not too runny.
Step 3
Add all-purpose flour to the potatoes mixture, season lightly with salt and mix everything together thoroughly with the spoon.
The amount of flour depends on how watery are the potatoes. Unfortunately, it is impossible to determine how much flour is needed. The mass should be compact so that the noodles do not fall apart during cooking. If they are very watery add extra flour to the mix. The mass has to be wet, but there should be no standing water in it.
Step 4
Bring a large saucepan of salted water to a boil. Put the small portions of the mixture on a plate and drop the dumplings with a spoon into the boiling water. Try one dumpling first and if it doesn’t fall apart, the consistency is right.
Dip a teaspoon in the boiling water, then dip the teaspoon in the dumpling mixture – picking up half a teaspoon or so–and slide gently into the water. Continue until all the dumpling dough is gone.
Step 5
Cook until the dumplings start to float to the surface and simmer for additional 5 minutes. Stir them carefully. Take them out with a strainer and put them into separate bowl. Cook all portions of potato dumplings in this way.
Each dumpling will have a slightly different shape and during cooking they expand slightly.
Step 6
In the meantime, chop the bacon into thin slices. In this picture I have regular bacon and turkey bacon (my wife’s favourite and it has much less fat). In a medium frying pan, melt the bacon over medium heat. I usually pour the bacon with the melted fat over the potato dumpling and mix everything thoroughly.
There are many ways to serve the potato dumplings:
- you can add fried bacon
- add crumbled cottage cheese
- my Father loved to add water in which the dumpling were cooked (it looked almost like a soup)
- you can pour in mushroom sauce on top
- in a medium frying pan, melt the butter over medium heat and sauté chopped onion. Pour over the dumplings (my wife love this option)
- you can also combine bacon with cottage cheese or sautéd onion
Salt to taste and mix well. Serve hot. Enjoy your Kluski Ziemniaczane.
SMACZNEGO!!!
