h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Entry: The Potato Dumpling War of 1967 - A87901275
Author: Dmitri Gheorgheni - U1590784

Pierce the Pirate shared this amazing true story with me. When I suggested he write it up for PR, guess what he said?

So Muggins wrote it up, complete with Knoedel recipe.

PS Thanks to Tavaron da Quirm for explanations involving kitchen technique, and the information that at least one h2g2er actually owns a potato ricer. I am in awe.

I don't think you're supposed to eat your ammunition though!

It's a bit surprising Herr Winter or his suppliers weren't arrested.

One question - is cornstarch the same thing as we English people call cornflour?

That is a good question, and I don't know the answer. Let me look into this...

Aha! No, it isn't. In this Youtube video, a robot will tell you more than you ever wanted to know about the differences between cornstarch and corn flour:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ks7-2MG7wNQ

I'm sure the German cooks are using cornstarch, because they all called it 'Maisstärke'.

Ah, the 1960s. When the guardians of homeland security were less trigger-happy, and people had Vierlings-Flak hidden in their basements...

Good and interesting article. Makes me hungry though..

I wonder how much damage a knödel hit would do to a jet engine. (There is a frozen chicken impact test for cockpit windows that I know of, so a knödel impact test seems feasible)
According to a Royal Dutch Airforce book I have, the engine of a Starfighter jet was so strong that it would have flown a (metaphorical) block of concrete, so I can imagine the noise would have been unbearable indeed.

Yeah, I don't blame him for complaining about the noise.

I wish to know more about this frozen chicken impact test.

I enjoyed reading this, especially about the awards

As I'm a novice cook, I had questions when I read the recipe:

Is there a rough guide as to how many Knoedels you can get out of this batch, or does the Knoedel size not matter as long as they're all similar?

Do you need to use a potato peeler to peel the potatoes after they've been cooked for 25 minutes, or is the skin easier to remove eg by hand at that stage?

The size of the Knödel does indeed depend on the cook. Most of the ones I saw made giant Knödel and got about six out of that lot. But I saw one video on Youtube with much smaller ones.

Whether the skin would come off after boiling would all depend on the potato, methinks. The German 'Pellkartoffel' definitely requires a bit of help from the peeler. But if I were going to do it, I might be boiling what my grandmother called 'Ah-rsh' (=Irish) potatoes, or red potatoes. Those, you could probably skin with your fingers.

I think you'd want floury potatoes, like King Edwards, for this. They are very easy to mash after they've been boiled (In which case, I don't know if you'd need a ricer. An ordinary potato masher, or even a fork might do.)

I think floury potatoes would be easier to mash, but less likely to stick together in a ball? Or am I wrong there? More experienced cooks, enlighten us.

The corn starch and eggs will probably keep it all together. More eggs will make them bouncy (so you can use them again, if you can find them back)

This gets better and better...

Seeings as Tav isn't here for the minute to comment, might I add my ?

In Germany (and probably in Austria, too) the normal kind of potato is not floury, but waxy. The usual thing to do with potatoes is make potato salad, for which you need potatoes which keep their shape. Ditto the German Bratkartoffel, which is boiled, then peeled and sliced and fried.

All potatoes in German cuisine are cooked in their skins, then the skin is pulled off - a potato peeler would just make a mess. The flesh of their potatoes is yellow - mashed potato will therefore turn out not like English mashed potatoes which is white and fluffy, but yellow and sticky. A potato ricer is the best way to mash them when cooked this way.

As for the protests about the "Tiefflieger" - these abound all over Germany. Certainly before the Iron Curtain fell, we were often deafened by F111?thread="/entry/A863453" >A863453?

Thanks for the info! And I agree about those planes. Noisy things. I didn't know about the Luftballons, but I would have like to see that.

I'll get that link in! And make a comment about the potatoes.

I don't know how the laat line of my post appears to you, but now I'm looking at it in Pliny it is indecipherable. It was about F one-elevens. Of 2hich we had plenty hereabouts, in the American sector.

(Back in Ripley) the whole of the second last paragrah of my post is obliterated in Pliny!

Sorry about typos. Last 2 posts done on phone and tablet respectively, which I'm not very good at.

I'm terrible at those touchpads, too.

I see what happened - in Pliny, it looks like the post parser tried to read the F-111 comment as an attempt to post a thread link. This wonder should go to tech@, so it will.

I added your link and a sentence about skinning potatoes. Thanks for backing me up on how bad those fighter jets were.

Now, I was going to disagree with your discussion on cornstarch/cornflour. I have always used cornflour when following an American recipe and it mentions cornstarch. Also, as far as I could see (from 40 years of housewifing in Germany - sorry to keep going on about that) - both were identical and they were certainly the same as Maisstärke.

But today I was reading an American recipe which went:

>>Add the milk and cornstarch to a medium sized saucepan. Set it over medium heat until bubbles begin to form around the edges, stirring constantly, about 5 minutes.<<

This is not the way I would cook with cornflour. Cornflour can only be added by rigorously stirring into a small amount of cold liquid and then adding a little of the hotter liquid, continuously stirring and tipping the mixture back into the pan of hot liquid, stirring all the time to prevent lumps forming. Also, I heard at some point that the hot liquid with the cornflour in it should not continue to boil for longer than a minute, or the sauce will separate out again (although I have never actually seen this happen, but then, I make sure I only boil it for as long as it takes to get rid of the floury taste and texture).

I am a lazy person and, believe me, if there was a way of getting round all that stirring/whisking, I would have found it by now. Well, there is the option of whizzing it all in the food processor, which would remove any lumps and homogenise the concoction, but that would mean extra washing up.

So further research is required as to whether what we in the UK call cornflour is exactly the same as the American cornstarch and the German Maisstärke. To all intents and culinary purposes* they are interchangeable, but are they the exact same chemical composition?

Next time I go online I shall investigate, but I'm busy preparing my week's food plan at the moment. I am looking up different recipes for a coconut-based dessert, which is where I found the above quote.


*and also for that fun thing with loudspeakers

https://youtu.be/2CJJ6FrfuGU

http://youtu.be/2CJJ6FrfuGU