No holiday is complete without some type of special food. Our family celebrates Rosh HaShanah, Jewish New Year, with these delicious meat stuffed dumplings. We serve them in chicken soup. For an extra special treat, par boil them, then pan-fry until crispy on both sides and serve with apple sauce!

For the Filling:

  • 5 lb chuck roast
  • 2 onions, peeled and cut in half
  • 4 carrots, peeled and cut in half
  • 2 celery, cut in chunks
  • 6 cloves garlic
  • 1 bottle red wine
  • kosher salt, freshly cracked black pepper
  • 2 bay leaves
  1. Put everything in a large pot or Dutch Oven. Add enough water to cover the meat.
  2. Bring liquid to a boil over high heat, reduce to medium to maintain a simmer. Cover the pot and let cook until very tender, 3 to 4 hours.
  3. Move meat and liquid to a large bowl and let cool. You want the meat to cool in the liquid so that it stays moist.
  4. When it has cooled to room temp, cover with plastic and refrigerate overnight.
  5. Grind the meat, vegetables and garlic. You can use a hand crank grinder, electric, or cut the meat into chunks and use a food processor to chop very fine. Taste the meat for seasoning and adjust as needed. Add a few splashes of the cooking liquid.
  6. Put the meat back in the fridge, or transfer to a zip-top bag and freeze if you want to make Kreplach next weekend. I like to save 2 cups of the cooking liquid to seal the dumplings, but this is optional.

Dough:

**I find that I need one batch of dough for each pound of filling. So, if you are making the full recipe above, you will need 6 batches of dough. Meat plus veg plus a little liquid.**

  • 1 cup all purpose flour
  • 1 large egg
  • 1/4 cup hot water
  • pinch of salt
  1. This is easiest in the stand mixer, but not at all hard by hand.
  2. Put the flour in the bowl, make a well and add the egg and salt. Start to mix. When it gets a little crumbly, add the hot water and mix until if forms a ball. If using the stand mixer, use the dough hook. Either by hand or machine for mixing, you need to knead it by hand until smooth and soft, about 2 minutes more after a ball forms.
  3. Cover with plastic wrap and let rest for 20 minutes.

**I make 2 batches of dough at a time, but can fit 3 in my stand mixer. More than 3 is hard on the machine and a little much to manage by hand.**

To make the Kreplach:

  1. After the dough has rested, roll out on a floured surface to about 1/8″ thick. Cut in 3″x3″ squares for a traditional triangle shape or use a 3″ biscuit cutter for a 1/2 moon shape.
  2. Decide how you want to seal the dough – egg wash, plain water, or cooking liquid for extra flavor. Either way, brush the edges of the dough. For the squares, only brush 2 adjacent edges, for the circle, brush 1/2 of the edge. The dough cannot seal if it is wet on all sides, the wet side needs to stick to a dry side.
  3. Put a blob of meat filling in the center of each piece of dough. For the squares, I use 1 tablespoon each.
  4. Fold the dough over the meet, gently stretching the dough as needed. Seal the edges very firmly! You can crimp with a fork for extra sealing and a pretty edge. If you have opted for a circle cutter, you can even use a dumpling/pierogi press from the grocery store to help you seal.
  5. As you finish each Kreplach, move it to a baking sheet. When the baking sheet is full, move it to the freezer. After 2 hrs the Kreplach will be frozen solid and you can pop them off and put into a zip-top bag or tupperware. The Kreplach cook best from frozen.
  6. The full batch of meat filling and 6 batches of dough will make about 150 Kreplach.

When you are ready to cook the Kreplach, bring a large pot of water to a boil and salt it well. Add up to 30 frozen Kreplach. Bring back to a boil, lower to a simmer and cook for 20 minutes, stirring a few times to make sure they don’t stick. Drain and put in the soup. Yum!