Nadlackie Halušky

The theme for the second Project Food Blog challenge is to prepare a dish from another culture. I've thought about it a lot. Any of the Asian cuisines seemed like a logical choice. But I wanted to do a recipe that is not only new to me, but probably to most of you too. And I had the perfect one!

Where did I get it? Not across the world. There it was, in the town Kovačica, in south Banat, mostly populated by Slovaks.

Last New Year's Eve, I talked to a friend of mine who is from Kovačica and asked him if he had some Slovak recipes for me to publish on this blog. A week or two later, he sent me the recipe for Nadlackie Halušky along with the photos and videos of preparation!

A real deal. Nadlackie Halušky made by the recipe of a Slovak Mamička!

They are delicious! Enjoy!

Nadlackie Halušky

These are actually a sort of dumplings. Steamed, cooked and fried at the same time.

Begin by preparing the bread dough. No special recipe, use your favorite one. The only thing that is important is that it is made with 500 ml water. And optionally, you can add an egg and some oil.

Here is the recipe that I used (based on this recipe): Dissolve 20 g fresh yeast in 500 ml lukewarm water. Add 1 tsp salt and 1 tsp sugar into it. Sift 840 g flour. Pour liquid into flour, add 1 slightly beaten egg and 1 tsp oil and knead everything into smooth dough. Cover with a kitchen cloth and let rise.

After the dough has risen, knead it again and flatten it with a rolling pin to the thickness of about 1-2 cm. Take out small circles of the dough using a small (rakija) glass.

Roll the circles into balls between your hands. As you can see, they don't have to look perfect :)

Knead the remaining dough, flatten it again and cut out circles. Do this until you use up all the dough.

Take a large pot that has a lid and grease it with with oil. Place dough balls into the pot in layers. Each piece of the dough should be brushed with oil. You need to do this because this will help separate the cooked dumplings.

First, heat the stove top burner. It should be turned on to 4 on a scale of 1-6 (or 2 if the scale is 1-3). When the burner's hot, pour 200 ml water into the pot with dumplings, cover it and let cook. Do not remove the lid while cooking! No matter how the strange sounds might come out of the pot :) Cooking time is about 20 minutes approximately. It is something that it's said you got to "have the nose for it".

Actually, the dumplings are first cooked, then steamed a bit, and finally fried. And at the point that they start to fry, you'll start hearing the funny sounds from the pot. That's the oil popping.

Now, prepare the syrup by boiling 100 ml oil, 50 ml water and 2 Tbsp honey (or granulated sugar). Carefully take each cooked dumpling and transfer into a bowl, again in layers. Pour some syrup over each layer.

The dumplings that were next to the sides of the pot will be crunchier than the others.

And finally, roll dumplings into poppy seed and sugar. To prepare the mixture for rolling, grind 2 parts of poppy seeds and 1 part granulated sugar in a poppy seed grinder. If you purchase already grinded poppy seeds, then just mix it with powdered sugar.

I have managed to find only one more recipe on the Internet for Nadlackie. It is on Vera's blog.

And, of course, a great thanks to Štefan and his mom!!!!

ps: If you like this post and think I should pass to the next round of PFB please vote for me here. Thank you!