№ 30Piens ar mandeļu ķilkenēm

Milk soup with almond dumplings Serves 6 · 45 minutes · Adapted from the 1796 recipe; not yet tested.

For the dumplings the book gives 8 loti of sweet almonds, 10 bitter almonds, 4 eggs, 2 spoons each of sugar and melted butter and 5 loti of grated white bread, which converts to about 105 g, 10, 4, 2 tbsp each and about 65 g. It gives no amounts for the milk.

Ingredients

For the dumplings

• 105 g blanched almonds, or ground almonds
• ¼ tsp natural almond extract, in place of the book's 10 bitter almonds (see Notes)
• 1 tbsp milk
• 4 eggs
• 2 tbsp caster sugar
• 2 tbsp melted butter, plus more for frying
• 65 g fine dry white breadcrumbs

For the milk

• 1.25 l whole milk
• 2–3 tbsp sugar, to taste
• 1 small cinnamon stick
• 3 egg yolks

Method

1. If using whole almonds, blanch them: cover with boiling water for 1 minute, drain and slip off the skins. Grind them with the milk in a food processor to a fine, slightly moist paste. (With ground almonds, just stir in the milk.) 2. Beat the eggs with the sugar, melted butter and almond extract. Stir in the almond paste and breadcrumbs and leave for 10 minutes so the crumbs swell. The batter should just hold its shape on a spoon; if it's too runny, stir in 1–2 tbsp more breadcrumbs. 3. Heat a small frying pan over medium heat and brush it well with butter. Drop in heaped teaspoons of the batter, a few at a time, flatten them slightly and fry for about 2 minutes a side, until golden and cooked through. Butter the pan again between batches. Keep the dumplings warm. 4. Meanwhile, heat the milk with the sugar and cinnamon stick until it just boils, then simmer gently for 5 minutes. Take out the cinnamon. 5. Whisk the egg yolks in a bowl. Whisk in a ladle of the hot milk, then pour it all back into the pan, whisking. 6. Stir over low heat until the milk thickens slightly. Don't let it boil, or the yolks will scramble. 7. Add the dumplings just before serving, or put them in the bowls and pour the milk over.

Notes

• What the book says vs. what we added: the book has you boil the milk with sugar and a piece of cinnamon, thicken it with egg yolk and finally add the dumplings, which are fried in a buttered pan. The amount of milk, the number of yolks, warming the yolks first (step 5) and resting the batter are ours.
• Bitter almonds: they give the marzipan flavour, but raw bitter almonds release cyanide and are hard to buy in many countries. Almond extract gives the same flavour safely. If you do use real ones, blanch and grind them with the sweet almonds, use no more than the book's ten for the whole batch, and don't serve the dumplings to children.
• *Ķilkeni* (Baltic German Keilchen) are usually small boiled dumplings. Here they're fried in a karašu panna, a small pan for flat cakes, so they come out more like little almond fritters. The book doesn't say how big to make them; teaspoon-sized is our choice.
• Breadcrumbs: rīvēta balta maize is grated white bread. We use fine dry breadcrumbs; fresh crumbs make a softer, wetter batter.