Schlesisches Himmelreich

Ingredients

Equipment Needed

• •Heavy lidded pot or Dutch oven, 5 to 6 litres
• •Potato ricer
• •Wide saucepan for dumplings
• •Slotted spoon

Instructions

1. 1

   Soak the fruit

   Put the prunes, apple rings, pears, and apricots in a bowl and cover them with the 400ml warm water for 30 minutes. Dried fruit needs to wake up before it meets the sauce; if it goes in dry, it steals liquid from the pot and cooks unevenly, hard at the edge and mushy in the middle. Keep the soaking liquid. It has already taken fruit flavour, so it belongs in the sauce.

2. 2

   Start the pork

   Put the smoked pork in a heavy pot and cover it with cold water by about 2cm. Add the onion, bay leaf, allspice, cloves, and cinnamon stick, then bring it slowly to a bare simmer over medium-low heat. Starting cold warms the cured meat evenly and draws enough salt into the liquor without squeezing the meat dry. A rolling boil gives you tough pork and a cloudy, over-salty sauce. Cook 60 to 75 minutes, until the thickest part reaches 70C and a skewer slides in cleanly.

3. 3

   Rice the potatoes

   While the pork simmers, boil the peeled potatoes in salted water until they are tender enough to crack at the edges. Drain them, return them to the dry pot for a minute, then rice them while still hot onto a tray. Hot potato rices clean and lets its steam leave; cold potato turns waxy and fights you. Spread it out and let it cool fully, 35 to 45 minutes, because warm potato cooks the egg and weeps starch. That is how dumpling dough turns to glue.

4. 4

   Make dumpling dough

   Mix the cooled riced potato with the potato starch, egg, fine salt, and a small pinch of nutmeg, using your hands just until the dough holds. Do not knead it like bread. Potato dough wants enough handling to bind and no more, because too much work makes the Knödel, dumplings, rubbery. Shape 8 to 10 round dumplings with damp hands and press a shallow thumbprint into each one, so the sauce has a place to sit.

5. 5

   Test the dumplings

   Bring a wide pot of salted water to a tremble, not a boil, and drop in one small test dumpling. If it holds, cook the rest. If it feathers or breaks, work another spoonful of potato starch into the dough. The test costs you one small lump and saves the pot; boiling water breaks the starch network before it sets.

6. 6

   Cook the fruit

   Lift the pork from its pot, cover it loosely, and strain 700ml of the cooking liquor into a wide pan. Add the soaked fruit and its soaking liquid, then simmer gently for 12 to 15 minutes, until the fruit is plump but still holds its shape. Add the fruit late because it should swell in the smoky broth, not collapse into jam. Weggeworfen wird nichts: the pork liquor is the base of the sauce.

7. 7

   Thicken the sauce

   Lift the fruit out with a slotted spoon and keep it nearby. In the pork pot, melt the butter or lard, stir in the flour, and cook it to pale gold, stirring, for 2 to 3 minutes. Cooking the flour in fat first takes away the raw taste and keeps the sauce smooth. Whisk in the hot fruit-pork liquor a ladle at a time, then simmer 5 minutes until glossy. Add the vinegar, pepper, and only then taste for salt, because smoked pork keeps giving salt until the end. If the fruit is flat, add the teaspoon of sugar; if it is too sweet, add a few drops more vinegar. Würzen, Fett, Salz zum Schluss.

8. 8

   Simmer the dumplings

   Lower the shaped dumplings into the trembling water and cook 15 to 18 minutes, until they float and feel set when nudged with a spoon. Keep the water quiet. A hard boil knocks them apart on the outside before the center has set, and then the sauce has nothing good to land on.

9. 9

   Slice and serve

   Slice the pork thickly across the grain and return it to the sauce with the fruit for 5 minutes over very low heat. Do not boil it now; the meat is cooked, and this last heat is only to bring pork, fruit, and sauce together. Serve the slices with the Kartoffelklöße and spoon the sweet-sour fruit sauce over and around them. Schön ist, was schmeckt.

Chef Tips

• •Use smoked pork neck or shoulder if you want neat slices; use smoked belly if you want the richer old larder version. If there is rind, keep it in the pot while simmering, because it gives body to the sauce. Weggeworfen wird nichts.
• •Do not salt early. The pork is cured, the liquor reduces, and the dried fruit concentrates the taste. Salt at the end, after the vinegar has gone in, or you'll chase the balance all afternoon.
• •Dried pears matter. Prunes give depth and apricots give colour, but pears give the dish its old orchard note. If you can find German Backobst, mixed dried baking fruit, use it here.
• •The dumplings are there for sauce, not decoration. Make one test dumpling before cooking the batch. Dumpling powder is not a shortcut; it is a worse meal.

Advance Preparation

• •The pork and fruit sauce can be cooked one day ahead and reheated gently. It is often better that way, because the smoke and fruit settle overnight.
• •Make the dumpling dough the day you serve it. Cooked dumplings can be held for a few hours and reheated in barely simmering water, but fresh ones have the better texture.
• •The dried fruit can be soaked overnight in the refrigerator. Use the soaking liquid in the sauce, because it carries the orchard flavour.

Frequently Asked Questions

Nutrition Information

1 serving (about 410g)