APPLE DUMPLINGS FOR SUPPER

My friend who had been married to a Newfoundland boy for many years (my good friend 'Newfie' Lloyd has since passed away)was raving about the apple dumplings served with Jigg’s Dinner at a relatives while visiting out on the Rock (Newfoundland) years back.I asked her how he made them, but she just didn’t quite know how this bachelor had made the apple dumplings, as she was visiting all the while the dinner was boiling with another relative who was there.

So what do you suppose Harold would do about that? He does know how to make plain dumplings. Why would it be so hard to make apple dumplings?

"Let’s just give it a try, B'ye", as they would say down on the Rock. Most people think B'ye stands for 'boy', but actually is the question 'Be Ye?' as in 'Do you approve?. This comes from various British English dialects of words and phrases brought over from 'Merry Old England'. Some Newfoundlanders I am not able to understand unless they talk slow. My friend Minnie, says next time she visits "I be talkin like ye". Even this I couldn't understand without asking two or three times for a repeat. She is Lloyd's sister visiting Dot, her sister-in-law.

That is exactly what I (Harold) have done today and now I want to share this fantastic delicious recipe with all who would care to know how. Most of my knowledge is gained in this way using hands on experimentation. My dear wife leaves the kitchen when I am cooking ' I apparently make too much mess', that is left to washed up after all is done. So I do those pots and pans myself.

BASIC DUMPLINGS RECIPE

2 cups flour

½ tsp. salt

¼ cup shortening

4 teaspoons Baking Powder

1 cup milk

Add flour, salt and baking powder in mixing bowl and stir dry. Cut in ¼ cup of shortening and mix by hand until all the shortening is completely mixed with the other ingredients. This mix can now sit until just 15 minutes before supper and the Jigg’s Dinner is still boiling.

Now add the milk and stir until a thick batter. It is then ready to spoon in large tablespoons full evenly over the boiling dinner. When all in, put the lid on and turn heat from low to medium. You now set timer for fifteen minutes and start it when you see bubbling around the lid. Just moments of time usually for this to happen. When timer calls, dinner can be served up, Dumplings first, then the Jigg’s Dinner around it and then with a scoop or two of juices from the boiling pot poured over top of this.

You will not leave a morsel on your plate of this fabulous food.

But I was going to tell you about apple dumplings, so check this addition out and be sure to try it.

APPLE DUMPLINGS.

In the two cup batch of dumpling mix above you add

1 tsp. cinnamon

1 more tsp baking powder

Two small or one large Apple - peeled and cut up into small pieces.

1 tblsp. Brown sugar

Flour to coat all apple pieces.

When you mix dry ingredients for dumplings, add one tsp cinnamon and mix with dry ingredients along with extra tsp baking powder.

Prepare the apple pieces and dust with flour, then add a tablespoon of brown sugar and mix until all pieces are coated. I spread the apple pieces now out over a microwaveable plate and microwave for two minutes. After this I set the plate in refrigerator to wait until final mixing time That would be fifteen minutes ahead of supper time for the dumplings to cook.

When it is time to mix in the apples with the dry ingredients, sprinkle more flour on and stir with a fork to coat all pieces and then dump into dry ingredients. Stir the apples into all of the dumpling mix.

Mix in the milk now and as soon as all batter is wet from stirring you can spoon large tablespoons in on top of boiling Jigg’s Dinner evenly around the pot. Have a look at picture on this.

Fifteen minutes later, when timer goes off, you can lift the lid and see a light fluffy batch of dumplings stuffed with apple and dripping with boiling juices of Jigg’s Dinner and having a faint taste of cinnamon.

Take a look at that plate of food. As I have said before “THIS IS FOOD FOR THE GODS”. This dumpling can be for main course or desert. My wife says to half the brown sugar added, so you make it your own and do it your way.

ENJOY !