Napkin Dumplings (Serviettenknoedel)

Today we’ll create some bread dumplings called Serviettenknoedel in Germany. The name comes from the dumplings being boiled in a dish towel 😎. Due to the time intense labor that goes into these dumplings, my mother-in-law has been creating these delish dumplings for us during their annual visits while we’re at work. So today, I’m thrilled that I’m finally able to know the secret on how to make these 🙌🏼!

The Serviettenknoedel aka bread dumplings go well with goulash, pork roast, sour beef roast and many more dishes. Another super simple but delicious use for the dumplings is pan frying them with butter, putting a sunny-side-egg on top and a salad on the side 👌🏼 *yumm. These are just a few ideas, on future blogs I will link the Serviettenknoedel on applicable dishes😊.

Let’s get started with your shopping list:

Ingredients

12 sandwiches (I used Torta sandwiches from Costco)
1 bunch curly parsley
32 oz warm milk
2 eggs
1 cup breadcrumbs
3 1/2 tablespoon Vegeta
2 tablespoon pepper
3/4 teaspoon nutmeg
Prep. Time: 45 minutes
Cooking Time: 1.5 hours
Servings: 10-12 servings

Now it’s cooking time 👩🏼‍🍳

First, you’ll prep the parsley and bread. You want to finely chopped the parsley and cut the sandwiches in small cubes

Warm up the milk in a pot on the stove or the microwave, but don’t let the milk boil, as you will need to mix all ingredients with your hands later on and you don’t want to burn your hands. Add the milk to the bread. Why we use warm milk you might ask yourself 🤔? Warm milk will make the bread softer faster. If you use cold milk, you’ll have to let the bread soak longer. Once the milk has been added, go ahead and add the parsley, eggs as well as all the spices.

Mix everything together with a spoon, until all the bread is covered evenly with the milk, eggs and spices.

Next, we’ll use our hands to really go into the bread, break it up and form an almost smooth texture. Mash all ingredients well together for about 3-4 minutes. The bread will not completly break up, which is what you want. The dumplings are more delicious, if you have some junks of bread in it. Lastly, we’ll add the breadcrumbs and mix one more time until all breadcrumbs are mixed in. Why adding even more bread? The breadcrumbs make the dough less sticky 😉.

Before we wrap up the dumplings into a dishtowel, put a large pot on the stove and fill it about 3/4 with water and bring it to a boil. You do not need to use any seasoning for the water, the dumpling mix has enough spices mixed in.

Put a dry dishtowel on your counter top. Moisten your fingers with cold water and put 1/2 of the dumplings mixture onto the end of the towel. Form a nice oval, smooth, loaf-like large dumpling. If the mixture is still sticky, use some more water on your fingers, it will make your life easier.

Then we roll the dough into the towel until it is fully covered with the dish towel.

We’ll tie both ends of the kitchen towel with kitchen twine, so the dough stays inside the towel while boiling in the water.

Reduce the heat to medium. Add the towel-wrapped dumpling into the boiling water and let it simmer for about 45 minutes. The water should not cook, otherwise the dumpling will break up 👆🏼.

Now it’s time to remove the dumpling from the water. Put it on a large serving platter and let it cool for a couple of minutes. Then we will remove the kitchen twine and towel.