Making Maultaschen

rolling dumpling dough through pasta machine

Once he's made the dough and allowed it to chill for 1 hour, he prepares his work surface by sprinkling a small amount of flour over it. He passes each piece of dough through the rollers of a pasta machine three or four times until it is quite thin, about 1/16″, taking care that it doesn't tear, until it eventually takes on the appearance of satin. He knows he's achieved the correct thickness when the sheet of dough is translucent; if the pasta is too thick, the dumplings will be chewy.

With the ribbon of dough laid out lengthwise before him, he uses a pastry bag to pipe a line of meat filling 1″ wide from one end to the other. He makes sure the filling is distributed evenly, as this will make for uniform dumplings that will all cook through at the same rate (as necessary, you can reshape the filling by hand with moistened fingers).

Next, he slips his hands under the noodle and the filling and gently lifts the edge nearest him along the entire length of the dough, rolling the whole mass forward as he goes, folding the dough over onto itself to form a long tube with a border of excess pasta running along its entire length. He brushes the border and the edge of the tube with beaten egg and seals the tube by rolling the dough forward just a bit more and gently but firmly pressing down with his fingers. He then trims the excess dough by running a paring knife down the length of the sealed tube.

separating dumplings from one another with a paring knife

He uses a knife-honing steel to divide the length of filled dough into discrete dumplings, slowly pressing down at 2″ intervals to form square mounds of meat-filled dough. Each time as he presses down, once dough meets dough he rolls the steel one half-turn in both directions to ensure a proper seal. He then separates the dumplings from one another with a paring knife.

plunging dumplings into boiling salted water

Finally, he plunges the dumplings into vigorously boiling salted water. He checks on them after about 20 minutes; if the filling is cooked through and the pasta still tender, they are ready to be transferred with a slotted spoon to the soup.