A FAVORITE DISH OF LITHUANIA
Cepelinai



Cepelinai, as in  Zeppelin air ships, is appropriately named. They're giant Lithuanian dumplings
usually stuffed with cheese, meat and potatoes.

Making the Cepelinai potato dough
ingredients:
700 g. raw peeled potatoes
200-250 g. peeled, boiled and mashed potatoes
Grate raw potatoes with a small-holed grate; Lithuanians say that the potatoes must be  grated
by hand, and that dumplings aren't dumplings without at least a drop of blood shed  during the 
process. Then squeeze the juice from the mass through a cheesecloth, reserving  the juice. Put
the potato juice to the side. Take a break if you like, then come back and  place the grated raw 
potato mush and the mashed potato mush into a bowl. Then take the  dish you have reserved the 
potato juice in and pour off the liquid; you should have potato  starch left on the bottom. Scrape 
out the starch and put it in the bowl with the potato  mush; add salt to taste. Mix the mush 
well with your hands (almost like kneading dough),  and put it aside.

Making the meat stuffing
ingredients:
70 g. ground pork 
50 g. onions
cooking oil 

Peel and dice the onions, and cook in oil until tender. Put them aside to cool. Place the  ground
pork, the cooled and drained onions in a bowl; add salt and pepper to taste, and  knead as if you 
were making hamburger or meatloaf.

Putting it all together
Take a fistful of the potato dough and make a flattened oval patty from it in your hand,  about 1
cm. thick and about 3/4 the length of your hand. Take some ground meat, also in  the form an 
oval, and place it in the center of the patty. Then enclose the patty around  the meat, squeezing 
and smoothing it with both hands so that the edges of the patty become  glued together and you 
have a shape about like a lemon, and the size of your fist. Place  the dumplings in boiling water 
and boil for approximately 25 minutes; potato starch may be  added to the water as well.

Lithuanians traditionally eat these dumplings with either sour cream, sizzling bacon-bits,  or 
both.

Courtesy  of Rita Dapkus, the owner and creative force behind two of the finest restaurants in
Vilnius:  Ritos Sleptuve (Rita's Hideout) and Ritos Smukle (Rita's Tavern).


Please report any bad links..Thanks, Buzz


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