Slivkové Knedle

Slovak Plum Dumplings

Slovak plum dumplings are a fine late summer dessert made with those slender little Damson plums you sometimes find at the farmer’s market.  Choux pastry is stuffed with the grape sized plums, boiled and then served with a dusting of sugary poppy seeds, toasted bread crumbs and melted butter. The dish takes less than 20 minutes to make, start to finish. In Slovakia you’ll find people may eat them as a meal instead of dessert.

Ingredients

• 12 small plums
• 1/4 cup black poppy seeds
• 1/4 cup bread crumbs
• 2 tbsp melted butter
• 2 tbsp sugar

Choux Pastry

• 1 cup milk
• 2 tbsp butter
• pinch of salt
• 1 cup all purpose flour
• 1 egg

Heat the milk and butter until hot, then sprinkle in the salt and flour, slowly mixing it in until a paste.  Remove from heat, then beat in the egg until the dough pulls from the sides of the pot, and is shiny.  When cool to the touch, roll out about 12 golf ball sized balls of dough.

Flatten a dough ball and place a plum in the middle of it, then pinch the dough around it and roll it in the palm of your hands to make it round again. You can pit the plums first if you like. Continue with the other plums and dough balls.

Boil a pot of water and place the dumplings in the water, plucking them out when they rise to the top of the pot, within 2-3 minutes.

Roll the dumplings in the melted butter, then in the sugar and bread crumbs. Serve them on a plate and sprinkle with ground poppy seeds (I toasted them first and then used a mortar and pestle to grind them). Slovaks use black poppy seeds, but this time I used white as that’s all I had on hand.

Dining under the pergola