PAPANASI FIERTI/BOILED CHEESE DUMPLINGS

Never before the saying "Practice makes perfect" suited me more than with these boiled cheese dumplings. I had many other cooking endeavors which were eventually successful - ile flottante (lapte de pasare), crepes, but I feel that only now I fully understand the expression. For my craving Facebook friends, here's the cheese dumplings recipe I've got from my neighbour Simona.

Ingredients:
500g cottage cheese
8 tbsp semolina
2-3 tbsp sugar
1 package vanilla sugar
3 eggs
breadcrumbs fried in oil or butter + sugar to serve
(or jam and cream)

Preparation time: 40'

Difficulty: low

Method

Drain the cottage cheese in a strainer for at least 20' and then put it in a bowl with the semolina, sugar, vanilla sugar and the egg yolks.

Mix with your hands. Beat the egg whites until thick, add to the mixture and mix again with your hands. Let it rest.

Put water and 1 tsp of salt to boil in a large pot (the dough should rest, that's why you put the water to boil only later). When the water is boiling, take dough with a tablespoon and add the dumplings to the water. You can also mold them a little with your hands, as I do. Reduce the heat. Let the dumplings boil for 10 minutes at medium heat, starting when they rise to the surface of the water. I part the dough in two because I don't want the dumplings to be too piled and I want them to boil evenly.

While the dumplings are boiling, heat some oil or butter in a pan and add a lot of breadcrumbs. Stop the heat when the breadcrumbs are fried and they darken their color.

Put half of the breadcrumbs onto a plate and when it has cooled, sprinkle some sugar. Take the dumplings out 6 or 8 at a time (depending on how many you can put on your breadcrumb plate), let them cool for a couple of minutes, roll over in the mixture and take them out in the serving bowl. Spread the remaining breadcrumbs and sugar and serve.

You can also take them out directly onto the serving dish and serve them with cream and jam.

Enjoy!