Zeppelins

Our life is full of interesting events. You should just look around yourself and you’ll see how bright and various is the world around you. Have you ever known, for example, that in Izhevsk the monument to meat dumplings has been built up? And in Moscow the monument to processed cheese “Druzhba”? There are also monuments to an orange, a potato, and pickled cucumbers. The Ukrainians have eternalized pies, an Easter egg and dumplings. Where is the good of my carrying on this conversation? The purpose is that I may presuppose that if the Lithuanians have decided to create a so-called “food” monument, it is most likely, that the world would see a monument to the zeppelins. This dish, I suppose, the most widespread in Lithuania. Every mistress that respects herself undoubtedly has her own recipe of this national dish cooking.

In different culinary books it is possible to find some other names: zrazy, dumplings. But Polish "zrazy" according to dictionaries is translated as “a scrap”, and a dumpling is “a slice of dough”. Using a word “zeppelins” is the most correct variant. And a dish has received such original name from a dirigible balloon. The matter is that in XIX century the German Graf Ferdinand von Zeppelin invented the controlled flying vehicle of a rigid design which under its form reminded the above mentioned dish of the Lithuanian cuisine.
What is at the back of such an unusual name?

Close your eyes for a minute and imagine something golden, hot, and airy, with the fine crisp, seasoned by the tender sour cream sauce. Your nose sniffs delicious flavour, and your hand is involuntarily reaching towards the plate. You bite off a little piece of this culinary masterpiece and you make a pleasant discovery: inside of a potato ball there is a meat stuffing. Possibly, zeppelins are so greatly beloved by people just because they combine two essential ingredients of the Lithuanian cuisine: potatoes and pork. By the way, the dish is not only nourishing and delicious, but it is also very healthy.
As it is known, the potato contains vitamin C, vitamins of group B, kalium, calcium, magnesium, ferrum, iodine, natrium and other elements necessary for our health. Pork is rich with mineral salts, vitamins of group PP, E, and B.

If you have decided to indulge yourselves and your relatives with this Lithuanian dish please take on a note the following recipe. To cook zeppelins you need: 16 averages potatoes, 250g of pork forcemeat, 150g of smoked bacon, 5 tablespoonfuls of sour creams, 2 tablespoonfuls of starch, 3 onions, salt, spices. Well, all the above mentioned and certainly your wish, a droplet of your patience and is a little free time. So, we shall start.
Boil 4 potatoes, cool them, and pass through a meat chopper. Put aside for a while.

The remained potatoes peel, rub them on fine (!) grater (you may use a food processor), push up by means of a cheesecloth and add starch to the received mass.

Mix a boiled and fresh potatoes, salt, mix it well enough so that you can get the elastic dough.
Add 1 finely cut onion to the pork forcemeat, salt it, and add spices.

And now we will begin the most interesting and fascinating action where you can demonstrate your talent of a “sculptor”. From the received mass make oblong journey-cakes, inside put the forcemeat, accurately close up edges and give them the necessary form with your palms.
Put the zeppelins in the boiling salted water; cook about 20-30 minutes, stirring them carefully and slowly.
Now we are making the sauce. For this purpose we cut the bacon with cubes, fry it and add finely cut onions. Fry until the onions will get pleasant golden color. After that add to this mass sour cream and mix. Serve zeppelins with the sauce. If you wish, it is possible to fry zeppelins on a frying-pan.

To gain the character of a good mistress, remember some cunning:
1. Add to fresh potatoes a little citric acid (about 1 gram) so that the mass will not grow black.
2. While making zeppelins moisten your hands with water, it will facilitate the process.
3. Put zeppelins into boiling water one after one, stir them constantly slowly while cooking that they will not stick together.
4. The degree of readiness can be defined in the following way: after emersion zeppelins again fall on a bottom.
5. It is necessarily to serve the zeppelins hot!
Enjoy your meal!