Kluski francuskie: choux dough dropped by the spoon, light as a cloud
Despite the name, these are dumplings from Polish kitchens: milk brought to the boil with butter, flour scalded in it, eggs beaten in one at a time and the dough dropped by the teaspoon straight into water. They puff to twice the size and come out light and moist, nothing like potato dumplings. With goulash, with mushroom sauce, or sweet with sugar and cinnamon.
Your own work in that: 40 min.
- Choux dough 15 min
- Dropping and cooking 20 min
- Buttered crumbs 5 min
Step by step
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Scald the flour in milk and butter
Bring the milk with the butter and salt to the boil in a saucepan. When the butter has melted and the milk starts to boil, take it off the heat and tip in all the flour at once. Stir hard with a wooden spoon until it comes together into a smooth, lump-free ball.
Ingredients: 250 ml milk · 60 g butter · 150 g plain flour · 3 pcs eggs · ½ tsp salt
TipAll the flour at once, not in stages. Added gradually, the first part gelatinises before the rest joins it and you get lumps you can no longer break up.
All the flour at once into boiling milk
Dry the dough
Return the pan to low heat and stir the ball for 2 minutes: it should pull away from the sides and leave a thin pale film on the base. This drives off excess water and decides how many eggs the dough will take.
The ball pulls away, a film on the base
Cool, then beat in the eggs one at a time
Transfer to a bowl and cool 10 minutes, stirring occasionally, until lukewarm. Beat in the eggs one at a time, incorporating each fully before the next. The finished dough is smooth, glossy and falls slowly off the spoon in a thick ribbon without pouring.
TipHot dough would scramble the eggs. Add the third egg cautiously, beaten, in parts: the texture matters more than the count. Too loose and it dissolves in the water, too stiff and you get hard lumps.
One at a time; the dough falls in a thick ribbon
Drop by the teaspoon
Bring a wide pot of salted water to the boil and lower the heat until it is barely trembling. Dip a teaspoon in the hot water, scoop a heaped teaspoon of dough (about 10 g) and slide it into the pot, resting the spoon on the rim. Dip the spoon again before each dumpling.
TipThe water must not boil hard. Choux dough is delicate and a rolling boil tears it into shreds; in barely trembling water the dumplings swell evenly and stay whole.
A hot teaspoon, water barely trembling
Cook five minutes after they float
Work in batches of about 20 dumplings so they don't stick together. They float within a minute and double in size; from that moment cook them a further 5 minutes. Cut one open: the inside should be even and moist, with no raw dough. The dough makes about 55 dumplings, so three batches — about 20 minutes in all.
They float, then five minutes
Toss in buttered crumbs
Melt the butter in a pan, add the breadcrumbs and fry 3 minutes over medium heat, stirring, until golden and nutty. Add the drained dumplings and toss through.
Ingredients: 40 g butter · 3 tbsp breadcrumbs · 1 tbsp salt
Golden crumbs, dumplings tossed throughServe
With goulash, beef roulades, mushroom sauce or a rich roasting-pan gravy. Sweet: skip the crumbs, use butter, sugar and cinnamon, or plum butter and sour cream. Eat at once — cooled, these dumplings lose their lightness.
With goulash and gravy
Before you start
Sweet
A spoon of sugar in the dough, and toss the cooked dumplings in butter with sugar and cinnamon, or pour over plum butter and sour cream. Dessert, or dinner for children.
For soup
A looser dough (one more egg) dropped from a small teaspoon straight into simmering broth and cooked 3 minutes. The dumplings take up the flavour of the stock.
They fell apart
The water boiled too hard, or the dough was too loose. Lower the heat to a bare tremble, and if the dough pours, add a spoon of flour and cook one test dumpling before the rest.
Nutrition
per 100 gStep photos are computer-generated from the recipe.
