I am diving deeper into cooking in the Germans from Russia heritage and culture that I am immersed in on the prairie.
With the brisk fall air, I decided to cook my first pot of knoephla soup.
In my true cooking fashion, I did not use a recipe…and I “cheated” a bit on making the soup. I am sure the local ladies would scowl at me.
Knoephla soup is a potato dumpling creamy soup that is the common soup offered and eaten in these parts.
The rest of the world may eat chicken noodle, vegetable beef, chicken tortilla or tomato soup.
But the prairie dwellers eat knoephla soup and a lot of it.
I made my first ever batch with out looking at recipes, shooting from the hip after looking at the soup and eating plenty of it over the past few years.
It is a staple food at every our one and only local restaurant and in most every local home…just not mine until this week.
I made a large batch to have extra to freeze and here is my best guessed, rough estimate of my recipe.
8 cups of chicken broth
(1) 2 lb. bag of dumplings (I cheated & didn’t make my own. You cheat too and buy from your freezer section in the grocery store like Baker Boy’s product that our grocery store carries.)
2 TBSP butter
1 large onion diced
5-6 medium potatoes, diced
Season salt to taste
Fresh ground black pepper to taste
1 TBSP Creamy Peppercorn Seasoning (from Penzey’s)…or substitute your favorite mixed salt/pepper/garlic spice like Jane’s Krazy Mixed Up Salt )
2 cups whole milk
(the German ladies only use heavy cream I am sure so go with that if you can afford the calories)
Bring the chicken broth and dumplings to a rolling boil in a large stock pot. Turn down heat and simmer.
In a frying pan, combine butter, onion, potatoes and a dash of season salt and pepper to taste. Cook on medium until onions are translucent and potatoes are fork-tender. Add potatoes/onions to broth/dumpling mixture and add Creamy Peppercorn Seasoning, stirring all together.
Simmer. Forget about it for a few minutes.
Add 2 cups of milk or cream and stir. Simmer a few more minutes and serve.
You can add chicken to it. Next time I may add shredded carrots also.
You will want to look for the above package in your freezer section for the perfect little dumplings I bought for the soup. This is a North Dakota company so if you don’t have this exact product…ask around to get it or do what the good German ladies on the prairie do…make your own dumplings.
My first ever batch of knoephla soup was a hit with my husband who is a born and bred knoephla soup eating man. 13 year old eating anything son Hunter rates my cooking. He gave the soup a 9.5 on a scale of 10, saying only the lady who makes it every Saturday at the “sales barn” (our weekly cattle sale in town) probably makes better knoephla soup. I think this is compliment? I am sure the sales barn lady makes her own dumplings and uses cream.
I’ll be making more of the simple, filling and yummy soup.
It is a prairie comfort food…and not just for the Germans from Russia.
Have you ever made knoephla soup?
Have a recipe secret to share that I missed?
Or do you just want a bowl to eat right now?
Man, that actually looks good and not something weird our ancestors would have ate! Love that you are sharing this all with us.
Oh I love love love Knoephla soup!! I am German (not Russian German) and I just love that soup. Ryan doesn’t like it and my kids are not big soup eaters, so I have never made it. I just eat it whe we go out. I may just have to try your recipe and freeze it. . . oh looks SO yummy!!
That looks fantastic! Going to have to make some this fall. I have never had it before 🙂
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My recipe uses diced potatoes, chopped celery, and diced baby carrots which are boiled until tender. Then I cheat and add a can of cream of celery soup and a can of cream of chicken soup along with 2 cups of milk. I do make my own dumplings, but I wouldn’t be opposed to trying those from the freezer section. I just made a batch today and was wondering if I could freeze part of it. So I will give that a try.