I never thought food is such a holivar topic. Everyone believes that only he prepares certain dishes correctly and is ready to defend his recipe literally with his fists (and some defend with their fists).
On one of my trips to Russia, I heard a story about how the dispute over minced meat for dumplings reached the point of massacre and kostelomy: one of its participants insisted that cabbage should be chopped into minced meat, the other - that minced meat needed pumpkin. There was also a third hero, he argued - cabbage and pumpkin in dumplings from the evil one, only meat and onions, only hardcore!
This hardcore supporter ended up in the hospital with a broken jaw. However, it is his own fault - when the dumplings go as a snack, and even not for the first liter, there is no need to argue. We must quietly crawl to sleep. But this is already so, the lyrics and only my opinion.
By the way, I love dumplings - I've already written about this more than once. But I only love it if the dough is prepared for them in such a way that it does not become slimy and soft, and the minced meat inside is juicy, aromatic, without the leading note of onions and without any outsiders aromas. At the same time, it should be moderately soft and moderately elastic, and not greasy! Fatty minced meat at once fu-fu and dislik, as the older child says.
Therefore, my wife believes that you can go broke on my dumplings. For my taste, the minced meat is best of all from veal. Add finely chopped onion (here to taste) and strong beef broth. Well, salt and pepper, of course.
I love the dough according to two recipes.
The first recipe is choux pastry, which always succeeds, while it does not crawl or "slime" during cooking.
The recipe is simple: for two cups of flour, we take three quarters of a glass of water, a couple of tablespoons of vegetable oil and salt to taste.
We boil the water, sift the flour and salt into a bowl and pour in boiling water and vegetable oil, then quickly knead the dough and knead it with our hands on a table dusty with flour.
For some reason, choux pastry always succeeds.
But with "simple" sometimes there are problems. I think maybe because it is not always possible to knead it perfectly (that is, "develop gluten")?
There, too, you don't need a lot of ingredients: for a pound of flour, two eggs, salt and water. As little water as possible. There were times when there were only enough eggs. By the way, I think when water is not needed in the dough, it does not depend on the size of the eggs, as some believe, but on the quality of the flour. And it is unlikely that if only eggs are enough flour - high quality.
I usually knead the dough right on the table - I add beaten eggs to a pile of sifted flour, and after stirring, I see if I need water. I add water with tablespoons, while kneading the dough hard - flattening and stretching (for the development of that very gluten).
Most likely, something is wrong with this technology. Correctly, in theory, add all the liquid to the flour and then, if the dough turns out to be too soft, add flour. But cooked in this way, it often sags during cooking.
How do you make the dough? I will be sincerely grateful for a good recipe!