Zeppelins with Cottage Cheese and Meat
Main Dishes • Lithuanian
Description
This recipe was shared with us by Robert Smith, chef at a popular restaurant in the city. "In many families, zeppelins are rarely made — it’s not a quick process. You have to peel a lot of potatoes, then grate and squeeze them — not everyone enjoys that. In the past, zeppelins were simply called dumplings, and during World War I, when German airships flew over Lithuania to Russia, someone looked up at the sky and realized that the name was taking flight. In Lithuania, zeppelins are served with sour cream and crispy bacon. But for many, this presentation can be quite shocking: the zeppelins just float in fat, and then there’s sour cream too. They taste great, but the appearance can be a bit off-putting. So, I came up with the idea to serve them with béchamel sauce."
Ingredients
- Potato 5 lbs
- Salt 0 oz
- Potato protein 1 tablespoon
- Scallions 5 oz
- Pork Neck 10 oz
- Onion 5 oz
- Vegetable Oil 0 fl oz
- Ground Black Pepper to taste
- Cottage cheese 10 oz
- Tarragon 0 oz
- Salted pork belly 5 oz
- Butter 5 oz
- Wheat Flour 0 oz
- Cream 5 fl oz
- Nutmeg 0 oz
Step-by-Step Guide
Step 1
Peel the potatoes.
Step 2
Boil 1 kilogram of potatoes until tender and pass them through a meat grinder.
Step 3
Grate the remaining potatoes on the finest grater until they turn into a puree. To make the process easier, you can use an electric potato grater or run the potatoes through a juicer and use the pulp. If the juicer extracts too much liquid from the potatoes, add a little potato juice to the pulp to make it moist.
Step 4
Squeeze the resulting mixture through cheesecloth and let the potato juice sit. Once it separates into starch and water, drain the water and keep the starch.
Step 5
Mix the boiled potatoes with the raw potatoes and the potato starch that remains after letting the potato juice settle.
Step 6
For the meat filling, pass the pork neck through a meat grinder, finely chop the onion (100 g), sauté it in butter until golden brown, and mix it with the ground meat. Add salt (10 g).
Step 7
Finely chop the tarragon and mix it with the cottage cheese for the filling.
Step 8
Take 100 grams of potato dough and 60 grams of filling. Shape the dough into a flat disc, place the filling in the center, and form a zeppelins.
Step 9
Bring the water to a boil, add 1 tablespoon of salt and potato starch. Once the water is boiling, add the dumplings. Cook the meat dumplings for 25 minutes, and the cheese ones for 2 minutes.
Step 10
Prepare the béchamel sauce. In a saucepan, melt the butter, finely chop the onion (100 g), and sauté until golden brown. Add the flour and cook it for 2–3 minutes until it changes color. Gradually pour in the milk and cream, stirring constantly until the mixture thickens to the consistency of yogurt. Dice the bacon into small cubes, adding two-thirds to the sauce and reserving one-third.
Step 11
Place the zeppelins on a plate, drizzle with béchamel sauce, and sprinkle with chopped green onions and the remaining bacon.
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