Knephla Soup: Germans-from-Russia penicillin

I've been battling a nasty cold for several days. When I'm sick, nothing makes me feel better like a bowl of knephla (pronounced nep-fla) soup. Whereas chicken noodle soup is Jewish penicillin, knephla soup is Protestant German-from-Russia penicillin. Every Friday during my high school years in my home town of Wishek, North Dakota, I would eat the knephla soup at the Prairie Winds Cafe. I can only imagine how many calories were in each large bowl, since the woman who made it was not shy with the heavy cream. Back then, I could handle the extra calories easily. Now I save this for a special treat or for when I'm not feeling well.

I have modified my family's knephla soup recipe quite a bit. My grandmother (and most other German grandmas) didn't sweat the onions and celery to draw out flavor; they were just added to the water along with the potatoes. I like to extract the maximum flavor possible, so I sweat a chopped onion and a couple stalks of celery, including the leafy parts, in a healthy (unhealthy?) amount of butter with a little salt. To that I add a quart of water, some bay leaves and allspice in a tea ball, and a large red potato, diced. While the potato is cooking, I prepare the knephla dough. It is typically a stiff dough, rolled into small cylinders, cut with scissors into tiny bits and boiled until tender. These dumplings are the knephla.

Before I delve into the etymology of knephla, a short explanation of Germans from Russia is due. My ancestors lived in the Alsatian (Rhine) area of Germany in the 1700s. When Catherine the Great invited foreigners to settle in Russia in 1762-63 with the enticement of free land, Germans began to escape the political upheaval of the 300+ municipalities and dukedoms that made up the area we now call Germany. After Czar Alexander repeated the invitation in 1803, a mass exodus of people from Alsace area occurred due to displacement during the Napoleonic wars. That is when my ancestors made the pilgrimage. Upon arriving in the Ukraine, these immigrants lived in relative isolation since the invitation included exemption from military service and the ability to keep their own language and culture. That is why the German spoken by emigrants to the United States via Russia is different than that of present day Germans. Many people think difference is due to the Russian influence, when in fact the language spoken by Germans from Russia has remained nearly the same for 200 years and the language in Germany is what changed.

The Germans living in Russia were not treated well and didn't integrate into the rest of Russian society. In the late 1800s, the czar wanted to unify Russia so he repealed the exemption from military service and imposed language and other requirements on the settlers. This caused a wave of people to emigrate from Russia to  America, mainly to the upper Midwest. I am fortunate that my relatives made it out  because after WWII, settlers who didn't return to Germany with the retreating German forces were deported into labor camps in Siberia and other places. Only recently has the Russian government tried to make up for these atrocities by repatriating the descendants of those so persecuted to the Baltic regions originally settled or to Germany.

Although the Germans lived in relative isolation, they did borrow some of the culture of their host country. For example, my grandmother often made a dish called Holubtsi (stuffed cabbage rolls). Holubtsi is definitely a Ukrainian word and dish, not German.

Back to the knephla. I've done some research, and it seems to me that the word (also spelled knoephla) is a twist on the German word for button, knopf. This case is further supported by the name of another German dish called Kase Knephla, which translates as "cheese buttons." These consist of a dough (basically an egg pasta) encasing a filling of cottage cheese, onion, salt and pepper. I think of it as German ravioli. The cheese buttons are boiled, then briefly browned in butter.

Back to the soup. My mother and grandmother boiled the knephla separately, then added them to the potato/onion mixture. It's a real PITA, and I always get tired and end up cutting pieces too large and have monster dumplings with the texture of tire rubber. I like smaller, more tender dumplings and when I made spaetzle for the first time a few weeks ago, the proverbial light bulb went off over my head. So now I just make a spaetzle dough, and grate it right into the potato broth. These petite, tender dumplings are divine.

Once the knephla (err - spaetzle?) cook for a few minutes to tenderize, a healthy dose of heavy cream and a generous dollop of chicken base is added. This step cannot be overlooked, because the salty, pseudo-chicken-y taste of chicken base (either powdered or a paste like Better than Bouillon) is crucial to the soup. You either love it or hate it, but it has to be there. I once tried to make it "pure" by using only chicken stock and no bouillon, but it just didn't taste right. So I don't mess with tradition any more (well, except for the dumplings - and the sweating of the vegetables - oh, never mind). Lots of black pepper is de rigueur, and parlsey is optional but nice.

The rich soup needed a sweet and light counterpart. I defaulted to another sick-day standby, raspberry Jello with mandarin oranges. I don't care what you say about Jello, I like it. It is light, refreshing, vividly colored, and perfectly artificially flavored. Plus it's easy and cheap - so what if it's old pig hooves? If pig trotters are considered great food, why turn one's nose up at Jello? Kick me out of the food snob crowd if you will, but I will continue eating it. Maybe I should call it sweet raspberry aspic. Yeah, that's the ticket.

Comments

[Charcuterista]

Sweet raspberry aspic sounds like it has some potential as the next big thing in foodieism. Be glad you blogged about it early!

The soup looks warm and comforting - perfect for the weather today. If I tried this at home, how much chicken base are we talking about?

I hope you are feeling better. I think this soup would do it for me.

[ntsc]

Rasberry jello is perhaps the one worth making. There is also a Danish rasberry-curant pudding similar to jellow, although not transparent. I can't think of the manufacturer at the moment, but it will come back to me. I've seen their products recently although not that one.

The difference in the German between settlers from Russia and elsewhere in Germany could also be because until the unification the language taught was the local dialect and not the High German (Berlin) dialect taught in the schools today. I was stationed near Stuttgart and the language spoken there was quite different than the language I was being taught. I could understand it, but accent and vocabulary was quite differnt.

[Darcie]

Charcuterista (I love that name!), for this soup, which was about 1 quart of water plus more liquid from the cream, I used about 1 - 1 1/2 tablespoons of Better Than Bouillon. I didn't measure, of course, but that should be in the ballpark. I would start with a tablespoon and taste from there. You can always add more!

[Charcuterista]

Thanks for the guesstimation - I have the worst time trying to remember to measure things too. I can't wait to see how your canadian bacon turns out...