Scandi part 1: giant stuffed gnocchi

I love Scandinavian design (IKEA excepted) and some of their dishes are pretty tasty (meatballs being the one good reason to go to IKEA), but I hadn't cooked many, if any, recipes from our Nordic neighbours until I found this 1976 book written for the US market - I think we picked it up at a secondhand book stall in Cambridge.

There are so many tempting recipes, and unsurprisingly a lot of pickled herring involved, that I've made two dishes, a savoury one this week and a sweet one for next week. Spoiler alert: neither of them contain herring.

I've noticed that 70s dishes are not conducive to dieting, and this week's recipe is no exception. Not that I'm dieting, but I do know this is a popular pastime amongst my extensive readership and I can only apologise. Potato dumplings stuffed with bacon and onions are not likely to feature in any weight loss plan, which of course means that they are absolutely delicious.

Ingredients:

For 4 people

4 very large potatoes

112g plain flour

1 egg

1 onion

250g streaky bacon

Butter

Allspice

Salt & pepper

A note on potatoes: the book helpfully notes that these dumplings can't be made with an American baking potato like the Idaho, because the potato dissolves when you boil the dumplings. I've no idea what an Idaho potato is, so turned to Felicity Cloake in the Guardian for her analysis in making the "perfect gnocchi" which this seems to be a giant stuffed version of. She recommends Desiree potatoes, or King Edwards at a push. I could only get King Edwards and they did work - just (it was a nerve-wracking few minutes of boiling and they did dissolve a bit), so get Desiree's if you can.

Method:

- Peel, boil and mash the potatoes 

- Peel, chop and sautéed the onion in butter until soft

- Fry the bacon until crispy then chop into small pieces and mix with the cooked onion, seasoning with a bit of allspice 

- When the mashed potato has cooled, add the flour and egg to make a soft dough, and season with salt and pepper

- This is where is gets messy! On a floured surface, roll the dough into long sausages, about 5cm wide, and cut into 5cm pieces - like giant gnocchi. You should get about 16 dumplings (and 4 per person is plenty!)

- Actually, this is where it gets really messy (and the Bearded Argentinian had to act as guest photographer) - poke a teaspoonful of the bacon & onion mix into the middle of a dough ball and seal the potato around the stuffing

- When all the dumplings are stuffed, carefully lower them into boiling water and cook for 10 minutes. You might need to do this in batches then keep them warm in the oven. Any less than 10 minutes and they'll just taste like potato next to some bacon and onion, rather than getting a gnocchi-like consistency, but it is nerve-wracking watching the potato start to dissolve...

- Serve with a drizzle of extra vigil olive oil and kale dressed with something tangy like lemon or balsamic vinegar to cut through the richness.

Låt oss äta! (thank you google translate)