Maultaschen(Swabian Pockets)

* Exported from MasterCook *

MAULTASCHEN (SWABIAN POCKETS)

Recipe By :
Serving Size : 4 Preparation Time :0:00
Categories :
Amount Measure Ingredient -- Preparation Method
-------- ------------ --------------------------------
-----DOUGH-----
2 3/4 c Flour
4 Egg
Salt
-----FILLING-----
1 tb Butter
6 Bacon slice -- cut into cubes
3 Onion, med -- diced
1/4 lb Sausage, Italian sweet
1 Hard roll, without crust, an
1/2 lb Spinach -- cooked
1/2 lb Ground meat
1 c Farmer's sausage -- diced
3 Egg
3 tb Parsley, fresh -- chopped
Salt -- to taste
Pepper, black -- to taste
Nutmeg -- grated
1 Egg
3 tb Milk, canned
Stock, beef

Combine the flour, eggs, and salt in a bowl and mix to
make a pasta dough. Then add a little water and knead
until it has a firm but elastic consistency.

To make the filling, melt the butter in a skillet and
fry the bacon with the onions until both are quite
translucent. Combine the bacon mixture with the
sausage meat.

Moisten the hard roll in water, press dry, and put
through the meat grinder (better than the food mill or
food processor), along with the bacon mixture, cooked
spinach, ground meat or smoked farm sausage, leftover
roast, etc. Then fold in the eggs, parsley, and
seasonings; mix together. The filling should be very
spicy indeed.

On a board that has been sprinkled with flour, roll
out the dough into rectangular sheets (about twice as
wide as you want your 'Maultaschen' to be). Take a
tablespoon measure and put little dabs of filling at
equally spaced 3-inch intervals all down the middle of
one side of the sheet of dough. Mix together the egg
and canned milk and apply it to the spaces in between,
the outer edge and the fold line. Fold the plain half
of the sheet of dough over to cover the filling, press
down firmly on the spaces around the little packets of
filling, and use a pastry wheel or knife to separate
the packets into 3-inch square or diamond- shaped
'Maultaschen'. The process is similar to making
ravioli. Cook thoroughly in beef stock or boiling
salted water for about 10 to 15 minutes, dpeending
upon the size of the 'Maultaschen'. They'll bob up to
the surface when they're done; remove them with a
slotted spoon and allow to drain.

Serving suggestions:

Cut an onion or two into half-rings, fry in butter
until golden brown amd empty the contents of the
skillet over the 'Maultaschen' on the serving dish.
Serve with slippery potato salad or a mixed green
salad. Certainly if anyone were to insist that
'Maultaschen' were the most delicious of all Swabian
specialties, I[ÿrst Scharfenberg] would hardly be
prepared to deny it. In fact, as indicated earlier, I
suspect that 'Maultaschen' would have very good
chances in a four-way interna- tional competition with
ravioli, won tons, and pirogi for the champion- ship
of the Roughly Rectangular Pasta with Meat (plus
Miscellaneous) Filling division.

It has been said that 'Maultaschen' were originally
invented in order to allow Swabians to keep eating
meat during Lent by concealing it beneath the pasta
shell and amidst the spinach filling from the eye of
the parish priest (if not the omniscient Deity
Himself). The following recipe is typical but far
from definitive, especially where the ingre- dients
for the filling are concerned. Feel free to use
whatever you have on hand or whatever your fancy (or
your conscience) dictates.

From: THE CUISINES OF GERMANY by Horst Scharfenberg
Simon & Schuster/Poseidon Press, New York, 1989
Posted by: Karin Brewer, Fidonet COOKING Echo,
7/92



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