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Cepelinai (Lithuanian Stuffed Potato Dumplings)

Name: Cepelinai (Lithuanian Stuffed Potato Dumplings)
Prep time: 1 h
Cook time: 35 min
Total time: 1 h 35 min
Yield: 4 servings
Cuisine: Lithuanian
Ingredients: 1.5 kg Potatoes; 500 g Potatoes; 1 tbsp Lemon juice; 1 tsp Salt; 2 tbsp Potato starch; 500 g Ground pork; 1 Onion; 2 cloves Garlic; 1 tsp Marjoram; Salt and pepper; 150 g Smoked bacon; 1 Onion; 200 ml Sour cream; Sour cream; Dill

Lithuania's national dish: raw potato grated fine and wrung dry, bound with the starch recovered from its own squeezed liquid, stuffed with pork and boiled into torpedo-shaped dumplings, served under a bacon and sour cream sauce. Recovering that starch is what makes or breaks them.

Ingredients

4servings

Potatoes · floury; to be grated raw and fine1.5 kg
Potatoes · to boil and mash500 g
Lemon juice · keeps the grated potato from browning1 tbsp
Salt · for the dough1 tsp
Potato starch · insurance, if the dough is slack2 tbsp
Filling
Ground pork · not too lean500 g
Onion · finely chopped1
Garlic2 cloves
Marjoram · the Baltic note; oregano will do1 tsp
Salt and pepper · to taste
Spirgai (bacon sauce)
Smoked bacon · finely diced150 g
Onion · chopped1
Sour cream200 ml
To serve
Sour cream · more, on the side
Dill · chopped, generously

Steps

Make the filling: work the chopped onion, garlic, marjoram, salt and pepper into the pork, then chill it.
⏲ 10 min
Peel and boil the 500 g of potatoes until soft, mash them smooth and let them cool.
⏲ 25 min
Peel the 1.5 kg and grate it on the finest grater you have. Toss the lemon juice through immediately — grated potato greys within minutes.
⏲ 20 min
Wring the grated potato in a cloth **until no more liquid comes out**. Don't throw that liquid away — catch it in a bowl.
⏲ 10 min
Let the liquid stand 10–15 minutes and a layer of white starch settles on the bottom. Pour off the clear water carefully, scrape up the starch and mix it back into the potato. **That starch is the only thing binding this dough. Skip it and the dumplings dissolve in the pot.**
⏲ 15 min
Combine grated potato, mashed potato, starch and salt into a dough that holds its shape in your hand. Unsure? Boil a single test dumpling — if it falls apart, work in potato starch a tablespoon at a time.
⏲ 10 min
With wet hands, take a handful of dough, flatten it across your palm, set a ball of filling in the middle and close it into a torpedo. Seal every crack with a wet fingertip.
⏲ 20 min
Bring a wide pot of salted water to the boil, then **drop it back until barely a bubble breaks the surface** before lowering them in. Stir gently for the first minute so they don't catch, then cook 25–30 minutes. A rolling boil splits them open.
⏲ 30 min
Meanwhile make the sauce: fry the diced bacon until the fat renders, add the onion until translucent, take it off the heat and stir in the sour cream. Don't let it boil.
⏲ 10 min
Lift them out, spoon the bacon sauce over, add a dollop of sour cream and scatter with dill.

Tips & Variations

Variations

Varškės cepelinai: Filled with curd cheese instead of meat. Much lighter, and the boiling time drops to about 20 minutes.
Mushroom filling: Dried or fresh mushrooms fried with onion make a vegetarian version. Keep the marjoram.
Didžkukuliai: Actually the proper Lithuanian name. "Cepelinai" started as a nickname — they look like WWI zeppelins — and has long since won out.
Fried leftovers: Halve cooked dumplings and crisp them in a pan. That's the standard way to eat them the next day.
More starch: If waxy potatoes keep letting you down, go up to 3–4 tablespoons of potato starch. The texture gets a little bouncier.

Tips

Recover the starch from the squeezed liquid. This is where this dish most often fails. Pour the water away without returning that white sediment to the dough and thirty minutes of boiling gives you potato soup.
Use floury potatoes. Waxy ones simply don't carry enough starch, however well you work.
Boil one first. Finding out after you've shaped all eight is unrecoverable. A single test dumpling saves you an hour.
Simmer, don't boil. Barely a bubble at the surface; a rolling boil bursts the seams.
Finest grater you own. A coarse grate gives a loose dough that splits, and a gritty texture.
Lemon juice straight away. Grated potato greys within minutes. It doesn't hurt the flavour much, but the colour suffers badly.
They're heavy. Two per person is a full meal, in Lithuania too.

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