Photo and kumla courtesy of Eric Njaa.
In a few more days, we’ll be messing up the kitchen with another batch of kumla, and I am trying to decide how I will tweak this batch.
I never make kumla exactly the same way twice. I feel compelled to tweak the process or the recipe. Some tweaks have worked well, and others not so much. Some tweaks have become a part of every batch, while others I’ll never try again.
One tweak I used years ago is to fry much more pork and onions than what I need to fill the dumplings so I can add the excess to the cooking water in the kettle. I have found that this adds more flavor to the dumplings.
Another tweak is to dump the ground up potatoes in a pillow case to wring out as much water as possible. Less water allows one to use less flour in the final mixture. The dumplings will be less pasty and lighter. My Aunt Margaret does this too and swears by it.
Another tweak I have tried was to add soy sauce to the pork and onion mixture. I don’t use that one anymore.
An uncle talked about using food coloring to color the dumplings. I think he colored them after they were cooked. He served blue, green and red dumplings to his guests. He said his guests told him that the colored kumla created some very startling side effects a day or two later.
One of the tweaks I’ve been considering is to add a surprise item to each of the dumpings, kind of like a fortune cookie. Whatever it is has to hold up in a wet, hot environment. Something written on parchment or cooking paper may work. How about excerpts from Norwegian nursery rhymes? I don’t know any of those, so that would take lots of research and work.
Bible verses may work. Many people would be surprised if I did that, but I had to memorize many, many Bible verses when I was very young, and I am sure I could recall many of them if I thought about it some.
I don’t know yet how I would select what verses to use. I would have to be careful about this. The wrong verse could spoil the enjoyment of kumla for everyone at the table. For example, Malachi 2:3 would not be a good one. It says something about spreading dung on faces.
What if I put Romans 6:23 “For the wages of sin is death…….” in there and the person who got that dumpling started choking on the paper that had that verse on it? How would that look?
Bethlehem Evangelical Free Church
When I was a kid, I had Romans 6:23 thrown at me all the time in church, Sunday school, etc. For the wages of sin is death is only the first part of the verse, but when you are a little guy sitting in church and you hear, “For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.”, I didn’t usually hear the part after the word death, and I began worrying about sinning and dying. Often, the pastor would not recite the last part for effect anyway.
Rev. Krag Wuflestad, one of the pastors of the Bethlehem Evangelical Free Church when I was little, often gave pulpit pounding, fire and brimstone type sermons that scared the crap out of me. I think he frightened some adults too. The church had a couple other pastors who were good at that. I used to go home terrified that I would sin and die and not even know what sin I would die from. I would have nightmares on Sunday, Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday nights before I calmed down a little by Thursday and didn’t feel like I had to hide under the covers from Rev. Wuflestad. Then, Sunday would come again, and if Rev. Wuflestad. or whoever, gave one of his more “inspired” sermons, so would the nightmares.
I was probably 5 to 7 years old when this was going on. When I got a little older, I reasoned that kids were given a waiver on Romans 6:23. Also, the fact that adults would go to church on Sunday and sin like crazy on Monday and stay alive gave me great hope.
Lots of sermons were inspired by Romans 6:23 in my church. Psalm 23:4 too. I knew about that one because the valley of the shadow of death is what I had to walk through going home from church.
This tweak is a bad idea. I’ll try another.
I went from kumla to church and Bible. Kumla is a heavenly dish, so it’s not such a leap.
We went to Costco to pick up a couple items today. On the way out, the Costco employee used the “C” word to express his wish for us when we left instead if the “H” word. There is hope.