Made a huge batch of these little guys yesterday and now I'll be set on sweets for the next month. For those not in the know, gombóc are Hungarian plum dumplings. The batch I made are plum and apricot since I had a crap ton of fruit that needed using.
These look intimidating, but are actually pretty easy to make. The only drawback is they take quite a bit of prep. So here's what you'll need:
5 medium potatoes, boiled in their skin
3 medium eggs
3-4 cups of flour, plus some for when you roll out the dough
1 teaspoon salt
8 small-medium ripe plums, halved or quartered depending on the size
6 ripe apricots
1 tablespoon of olive oil
1/2 cup - 1 cup of farina
6 cups of water
Boil the potatoes, peel the skin off by hand while submerging them in cold water. I find the dough is of better consistency it the potatoes are warm when you mash them, but if you don't like touching hot potatoes, you can just let them cool and then peel.
Mash the potatoes with a fork, add 1/2 teaspoon of salt and eggs. Mix together thoroughly. Slowly add the flour until your dough pulls away from the edges of the bowl and is not too sticky. Be careful to not add too much flour, or the dough will be too chewy and thick. Let the dough rest while you rinse, and cut the plums and apricots.
Add salt to the 6 cups of water and bring to a boil. Roll out the dough on a floured surface and cut into approx. 3x3 squares. Put one fruit piece in each square, and wrap the dough around the fruit. Make sure you seal the edges since you don't want any leaking when you boil them. If your dough won't stick, use a little warm water to seal the edges.
Drop a batch of gombóc (5-6 depending on the size of your pot) into the boiling water. Adjust them periodically so they don't stick to the bottom. When they float, they're done. Remove them from the water and set them in a strainer. If you're good at multi-tasking in the kitchen or are a master of the gombóc, you can do the boil and fry steps simultaneously. If not, boil all the dumplings and then coat/fry them.
In a frying pan or wok (I find the wok works really well for coating), heat the olive oil and add 1/4 cup of farina. Brown the farina and then roll the gombóc in the farina until they're well coated. Add more farina as needed.
I usually take the excess brown farina and add cinnamon and brown sugar and use it as an ice cream topping.
You can top them with white sugar as I have above, or brown sugar, or you can eat them plain if you don't have a big sweet tooth. Occasionally, I like to serve them with a little vanilla ice cream with the cinnamon brown sugar topping.
Prep Time: 45 minutes
Total Cook Time: 20-25 minutes
Yields: 42 gombóc
