Lithuanian cuisine - Kugelis

Kugelis also more formally named "Bulviu plokstainis" literally translates to flat potato dish. It's quite popular in my country since potatoes dominate our national dishes and this one is almost purely made out of it:)

It's not particularly healthy and it goes well with sour cream as topping. If you're more a meat-lover like me you won't refuse a topping of pork or bacon cracklings with fried onions (just like on the Cepelinai) . Sometimes this dish is baked with some kind of meat in it already, I'm not a huge fan of it but people seem to enjoy it. It's not that hard to prepare but the baking takes some time. Definitely less time and effort consuming than Cepelinai.

Basically what you need to is grate some potatoes and one onion, add some spices and perhaps some milk. Then put it in the oven. There's lots of recipes that differs from each other a little.

Again you can find some great recipes online, it's definitely worth a try:) You can also try this link for a fast one.

Lithuanian cuisine - Cepelinai

Time for some cooking. I occasionally like to experiment with food and I enjoy my country's national dishes. So I'll introduce you to some of it.

Cepelinai is a national dish. It's named so because it resembles the airship 'Zeppelin'. They are a type of dumplings made from grated potatoes and usually has ground meat (pork) inside, sometimes the meat is replaced by cottage cheese. It's served with sour cream and pork or bacon cracklings (spirgai).

Here's how you can make some yourself. It's quite a long process but if you have several people working on it it's really fun. Last time I was making there was 10 of us and we made them really quick, only the cooking took some time.

First you have to peel the potatoes and boil some then grate the rest.Later you will need to rice the boiled potatoes and squeeze the grated ones in a piece of cloth so it ends up dry. Save the fluid from the potatoes since at the bottom the starch will set. Then you should mix the potatoes take some into your hand and make a flat patty. Add some meat in the middle and start forming a football shape. Use the starch to coat them and add them to boiling water till done. 1 - 1.5 hours.

You can find some great recipes online or there's also some good illustrations here.

Good luck.

Many more posts to come!