Ragout with german dumplings

When I was little, we never had dumplings at home. On the one hand because they are simply not particularly typical in Northern Germany (more in southern Germany and Austria), on the other hand because nobody but me liked them. :D

But maybe that's why I enjoy them even more when I'm making them now.

In our household we hardly ever have rolls or white bread left over to make them, but this weekend I was "lucky" and left bread rolls in the oven for too long. I knew immediately that I had to make dumplings again. ;)

Duration: about 1 hour

Difficulty: medium

Makes: 4 servings

Ingredients:

Dumplings

6-7 old stale bread rolls (approx. 300g)

40g soy flour

200g (soy) milk

10g vegetable stock powder

2g pepper

1g nutmeg

40g butter alternative

80g onion (weighed unpeeled)

30g herbs (preferably parsley, but a mix of parsley, chives and wild garlic is also great) breadcrumbs

More (Soy-) milk

Ragout

1500g vegetable broth

250g soy chunks (TVP)

soy sauce

oil

250g onions (weighed unpeeled)

3 cloves of garlic

30g oil

20g flour

35g soy sauce

40g tomato paste

250g red wine

500g vegetable stock

If you want, some carrots, mushrooms and some vegan cream for cooking

Red cabbage or other vegetables as a side dish

Some parsley to garnish

Preparation:

It starts with the rolls. Mine were already 2 days old and really nice and dry. They are then simply diced with a sharp knife and mixed with the soy flour.

While I was cutting the rolls, I was boiled 1500g of vegetable broth in a pot, which was then joined by the soy chunks. They are then cooked in it until they are really nice and soft. Then pour it out through a sieve and squeeze out as much liquid as possible.

In a second small pot I heated the (soy) milk together with a little vegetable stock, pepper, nutmeg and the butter alternative. The milk doesn't have to boil.

While the milk is warming up, the onion can be cut as finely as possible and the herbs chopped. You can also fry the onions in some oil for a bit, but that's really optional.

Then everything is kneaded together with the rolls into a dough. If the liquid is too hot for you, stir the mass with a scraper until it has cooled down a bit.

In the end, you should have a relatively malleable dough that should be easy to shape into 12-14 dumplings. If it is a little too dry to shape, add some milk, if it is too moist, add some breadcrumbs.

Salted water is brought to the boil in a large pot and then the dumplings are added. These are then allowed to soak in the water for 20 minutes, while it is no longer allowed to boil. When the time is up, carefully take the dumplings out of the water and keep them warm in a saucepan with the lid closed until the ragout is ready.

While the dumplings are brewing, the soy chunks are fried in a non stick pan until they are really nice and crispy and then deglazed with a little soy sauce.

I fried the whole thing in two batches, if your pan is big enough you can of course do it in one pass.

The soy pieces can then be put aside. If you want to, you can also fry some mushrooms at this point ant add them to the soy pieces.

The ragout is then prepared in a large saucepan. First of all, onions and garlic are cut. At this point I have already weighed the other ingredients and put them ready so that nothing burns later because something still has to be weighed. The onions can then fry a little in about 30g of oil until they get color. Then add the tomato paste and garlic. Stir well, especially after the tomato paste is added, everything sticks to the bottom of the pot very quickly, which up to a certain point is also wanted to get a little more roasted aromas in the sauce. Still nothing should burn.

Then add the soysauce to the onions. This gives the sauce a nice darker color. Then add the flour relatively quickly and fry it briefly. Here, too, stir thoroughly so that nothing burns. Then the red wine is added and from now on the whole thing becomes a little more relaxed. Once everything boils, make sure that the flour has dissolved well and then add a light vegetable broth. Now the whole thing can boil down properly for 10 minutes over high heat.

If you prefer something wih a little more vegetables, you can also add some chopped carrots now and cook them in the sauce until they're done.

Then add the soy chunks and if you want, the mushrooms, and cook them for another 5-10 minutes. Your dumplings should be out of the water in the meantime, then you just have to add some vegetables or red cabbage as a side dish. If the sauce from the ragout is not creamy enough for you after cooking, you can also stir a teaspoon of starch with a little water and add the slurry to combine everything or add some vegan cream.

Then you just have to serve the dumplings together with the ragout and red cabbage and you can enjoy.

Guten Appetit!

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