It’s a shame that Schuhbeck Fonsi is indispensable right now, because after Christmas dinner there were still a few questions about his recipe “Potato dumplings half and half”. Once a year, the ambitious family chef takes Alfons Schubeck’s “The New Bavarian Cookbook” off the shelf to delight his loved ones with food and drink. On page 192 (4th edition 1999) it says: “A good potato dumpling is still the number 1 accompaniment to roast pork, sauerbraten and Böfflamott in Bavaria.”
The family chef therefore ignores all warnings (always take the potato dumplings out of the package!) and sets about preparing Schuhbeck’s potato dumplings on Christmas Day. The recipe seems simple, in principle all you need is grated potatoes. The thing about bread dumplings is that they have to be almost as hard as cannonballs when you throw them into water, otherwise they will dissolve. Note: If the test bread dumpling breaks down, then you have to add breadcrumbs, this is what experience teaches.
Schuhbeck is silent about the consistency of potato dumplings. However, the potato dumpling mixture looks completely different than in the photo: it is not golden yellow, but gray. This is a very bad omen. A test potato dumpling falls apart in water, which the family chef tries to correct by adding starch powder. Okay, that’s not in the cookbook. But a sauce thickener belongs in every good kitchen!
The potato dumpling, however, is uncooperative; it now retains its shape to some extent, but the color is very reminiscent of tile cement. It tastes like that too. A somehow bitter note has crept in, which you couldn’t season with Maggi. In short: the “potato dumplings half and half” are the most disgusting thing the family chef has made since his experiments with pearl barley. He has no choice but to make an emergency call to a country inn. The son gets 20 pieces there for 20 euros. Golden yellow. Soft. Potatoy. Probably from the package. No matter, the Christmas potato dumpling crisis is averted.
Dear Fonsi, as we hear, you are not allowed to cook in the Landsberg prison. But you could write a few lines about what went wrong!