Cooking Searching for "Old Country" recipe with bacon, sauerkraut, dumplings...

[shancan911]

My mom's family used to make this dish at Easter, and it was my favorite. I'm sure it's a real artery clogger, but it's so tasty. I can't seem to nail it.
Basically, a casserole with bacon crumbled up, sauerkraut, and dumplings. I got the recipe down for the dumplings(they taught me to make a potato dumpling), but adding the other 2 ingredients in just doesn't give me what I think it should taste like. Have added an onion into the kraut before cooking, and drizzled with extra bacon grease. Told ya it's an artery clogger.
It's my understanding that this is a Hungarian recipe. They were Hungarian and Polish. I haven't met a Hungarian that I haven't asked about this recipe, and no one has heard of it. Open to all suggestions.
Thanks@

 

[MazdaUK]

My MIL is Hungarian so I'll ask her Hungarian cooking is very regional - being landlocked they tend to "borrow" from where thery're nearest to (so there's a million and one ways to cook Goulas ) MIL was from near the Austrian borders, FIL was from Budapest.

I've got a cookbook as well, I'll see if I can find anything in there.
Have you tried googling? Recipezaar has come up trumps for mee with pogacsa

 

[mel63]

Could this be it?

Layered Cabbage

1/2 cup long grain rice
1 cup chicken broth
8 slices bacon
1 medium onion, chopped
1 pound lean pork, cut into 1/2 inch cubes
1/2 pound Kielbasa (Polish sausage), slice into 1/3 inch rounds
4 teaspoon Hungarian Paprika
1 large clove garlic, minced
1 pound sauerkraut.
1 cup sour cream
1/3 cup milk
1 egg, lightly beaten

Preheat oven to 375 F
Butter a 2 quart casserole dish.
Cook the rice in the chicken broth for 10 minutes, drain.
Cook bacon until crisp, crumble
In the bacon drippings, saute the onions for 3 minutes.
Add the pork to the skillet, and cook for 10 minutes
Add the Kielbasa, paprika, and garlic. Cook, stirring for 5 minutes.
Rinse the sauerkraut and squeeze dry.
Arrange half the sauerkraut in prepared dish and top it with a layer of half the meat mixture, the rice, the remaining meat mixture, the remaining sauerkraut, and the bacon.
In a small bowl, combine the sour cream, milk, and egg.
Top the dish with the sauce, spreading it evenly.
Bake for 50 minutes or until lightly browned.

Serves 6

It doesn't have dumplings but I would think that you could use dumplings anyway. Maybe omit the rice.

 

[shancan911]

Thanks you 2!
Mel, that's not it, but it sure does sound yummy. I will have to give that a whirl.

 

[MazdaUK]

I haven't found a recipe yet with bacon and saukraut, but quite often things are cooked in stock and/or tomatoes then with sour cream stirred through. could that be it?

Or we have "cabbage noodle" (I won't attempt the Hungarian ) where cabbage is cooked in butter til soft and layered up with small squares of pasta then baked in the oven with plenty of ground black pepper - but I don't think it can be a variation on what you're looking for as there is no "broth" to float dumplings.

I'll go back to the book tonight and try soup recipes- after all, goulash is actually more of a soup (the way my MIL cooks it) than a stew 9the way it tends to be served in restaurants).

 

[MazdaUK]

I found this - could it be a variation on this?

Sauerkraut soup (serves 6)
600g pork spare ribs
100g bacon
200mls sour cream
500g sauerkraut
10g paprika
1 bayleaf
50g flour
pinch of caraway seeds
salt

Fry the fat out of the bacon, previously cut into squares, then add the paprika and the sauerkraut. Pour in a cup of water and spice with salt, caraway seeds and bay leaf. Cook under cover until saurkraut is half-cooked. cut the pork into 2cm thick square pieces and braise in separate dish until half cooked, then add to sauerkraut. Let it up with 2.5 litres of water, adding salt to taste, continue cooking on low heat until both meat and sauerkraut are done. Mix flour into sour cream and mix into soup.

I'm not sure they mean spare ribs like we do - probably rather a thin layer of meat from that general area (like a thinner version of belly pork, which you could probably substitute). There would be plenty of liquid here to support the adition of dumplings

I'll ask MIL tomorrow for any suggestions, but caraway is almost as common a seasoning as paprika, and you'll probably find the addition of both will help the dish taste more like you remember.

 

[maggymouse]

This is the recipe that was passed to my husband from his Czech Grandmother.

He received many compliments and last year we started an annual Oktoberfest based on the fact that so many people have requested that he make it.

Potato Dumplings


Make ¼ box of instant potatoes (6-7 servings) and let cool over night in refrigerator.

3 eggs
1c. cream of wheat
5c. flour

Mix ingredients to cooled potatoes make into big balls, roll balls into rope size on a floured surface and cut into desired size of dumplings, drop into boiling salt water dumplings will sink to the bottom, when they float back to the surface boil for 5 min
Sometimes you may have to loosen from bottom of pot when finished remove from water and set aside.


Sauerkraut

3lb. sauerkraut
½ jar of the 0.60 oz. caraway seed
1c. chopped onion
½ lb. bacon (chopped & browned)
1c. brown sugar
1 pkg. pork gravy mix
1T corn starch

Combine sauerkraut, caraway seed, chopped onion, bacon & bacon grease, and brown sugar in a large pot, fill pot with water so it comes about 3” above sauerkraut and boil for 2-3 hours or until water is almost gone make pork gravy according to pkg. and add to sauerkraut, mix cornstarch with water and add to sauerkraut to thicken. Then add dumplings, cook to heat dumplings and enjoy.


Pork Roast

Place pork roast in pan salt & pepper roast add caraway seed to top slice onion place on top preheat oven to 400 place in oven uncovered for 1 hour do not open oven, turn oven

 

[shancan911]

This is the recipe that was passed to my husband from his Czech Grandmother.

He received many compliments and last year we started an annual Oktoberfest based on the fact that so many people have requested that he make it.

Potato Dumplings


Make ¼ box of instant potatoes (6-7 servings) and let cool over night in refrigerator.

3 eggs
1c. cream of wheat
5c. flour

Mix ingredients to cooled potatoes make into big balls, roll balls into rope size on a floured surface and cut into desired size of dumplings, drop into boiling salt water dumplings will sink to the bottom, when they float back to the surface boil for 5 min
Sometimes you may have to loosen from bottom of pot when finished remove from water and set aside.


Sauerkraut

3lb. sauerkraut
½ jar of the 0.60 oz. caraway seed
1c. chopped onion
½ lb. bacon (chopped & browned)
1c. brown sugar
1 pkg. pork gravy mix
1T corn starch

Combine sauerkraut, caraway seed, chopped onion, bacon & bacon grease, and brown sugar in a large pot, fill pot with water so it comes about 3” above sauerkraut and boil for 2-3 hours or until water is almost gone make pork gravy according to pkg. and add to sauerkraut, mix cornstarch with water and add to sauerkraut to thicken. Then add dumplings, cook to heat dumplings and enjoy.


Pork Roast

Place pork roast in pan salt & pepper roast add caraway seed to top slice onion place on top preheat oven to 400 place in oven uncovered for 1 hour do not open oven, turn oven

Maggiemouse, I'm thinkin you're onto something. Maybe my problem in this whole quest is that I'm asking the wrong people. Great aunt told me Hungarian. Should have asked great aunt 20 years ago, lol. I always add brown sugar to my kraut when i cook it for pork roast dinner. Don't know why I didn't think to try it here, and the pork flavor could just about do it, too. I scratch my dumplings, but I'll keep your recipe, too. I'll have to do this, and report back. Fingers crossed.

 

[shancan911]

Just wanted to say THANKS to everyone! It's great to see all these yummy ideas! As artery clogging as they probably are I wish I had the desire to learn these dishes back when all the aunties were alive and well. There are just 2 left, one is a nun who lives a few states away, and the second is 85-ish living in assisted living. She hasn't cooked in years, and can't recall the recipes she knew by heart.

 

[Maniacmamma984]

My mom's family used to make this dish at Easter, and it was my favorite. I'm sure it's a real artery clogger, but it's so tasty. I can't seem to nail it.
Basically, a casserole with bacon crumbled up, sauerkraut, and dumplings. I got the recipe down for the dumplings(they taught me to make a potato dumpling), but adding the other 2 ingredients in just doesn't give me what I think it should taste like. Have added an onion into the kraut before cooking, and drizzled with extra bacon grease. Told ya it's an artery clogger.
It's my understanding that this is a Hungarian recipe. They were Hungarian and Polish. I haven't met a Hungarian that I haven't asked about this recipe, and no one has heard of it. Open to all suggestions.
Thanks@

My family makes this, you start out with making the dumplings, boil them until they float set aside in the roasting pan fry up your bacon add that with the dumplings then I like to fry to sauerkraut in the remaining bacon grease LOL I know it's bad, then I add that in with the bacon and the sauerkraut stir and then pour heavy whipping cream over the top salt and pepper and bake