Cepelinai dumplings help tell the story of Lithuania's past

Lithuania's potato dumplings are considered a national dish but they have a difficult history.

Cepelinai potato dumplings in Lithuania. Source: Michelle Tchea

One of the joys of travelling overseas is discovering food cultures and recipes you may not find in your own city. Most countries have rich food cultures and beckon food-loving travellers to jump on a plane and travel halfway across the globe to experience them. Whether it's a pastry or a bowl of ramen, they want to experience cuisine that's truly "authentic". How many people have visited Japan for tonkotsu ramen in Fukuoka? Hai! How many people have endured one of the longest long-haul flights ever and visited Paris just to eat flaky croissants from a Parisian boulangerie? Oui - c'est moi! 

My latest expedition was to Vilnius, Lithuania and I found myself drawn to traditional restaurants serving typical Lithuanian food like beetroot soup and layered cakes.

One dish I had on my Vilnius-must-eats list before I landed was cepelinai. Cepelinai is seen as a national dish of Lithuania, and if you do a quick Google search, it comes up among dishes such as bulviniai blynai (fried potato pancakes) and kibinai (pasties).

Cepelinai is considered a dumpling, but it's not an average dumpling like the ones my grandpa taught me to make as a child, or even the raviolis or pierogies found in Italy or Poland, respectively.

No, no, no - this is the king of all dumplings and it's quite a beast when served on your plate. Cepelinai, made of potatoes, are bouncy, chewy and completely delightful. The filling is usually meat, but it can also have ingredients such as cheese curd.

However, despite cepelinai being served in many of the traditional restaurants in the Old Town of Vilnius, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, the recipe is not that old and has a difficult history.

The history of cepelinai is something most Lithuanians are unaware of.

Lithuania, like many European countries, has a long history of being under the control of other European countries, including the former Soviet Union, which, among other things, led to the deterioration of the country's food culture. Chef Rita Kersulyte-Ryckova of restaurant Lokys in Vilnius is one chef in Lithuania serving traditional Lithuanian cuisine in Vilnius' Old Town, and tells me that cepelinai is an important part of Lithuania and its food culture. 

"The history of cepelinai is something most Lithuanians are unaware of," says Kersulyte-Ryckova. "Lithuanians would mention cepelinai as one of the staples of their cuisine, together with other potato-based dishes, [but] the true origin of cepelinai, however, lies with [the] historic Jewish community, [the] Litvaks of Lithuania, although [if you ask someone on the street] most Lithuanians would swear it's authentic Lithuanian and entirely unrelated to Jews."

To cut a long, hard and tumultuous story short, Lithuania was occupied by the Soviet Union for a significant part of the 20th Century, and as a result, the objective "to make us Soviet was part of the internal policy," Kersulyte-Ryckova says. "The goal was to standardise everything; food was no exception. Restaurant menus were standardised all over the Union." For example, there was a list of dishes that could be served at all restaurants and cafes; the chefs weren't allowed to prepare anything else. 

Cepelinai was one of the recipes allowed during Soviet rule. Some say that the dumpling was called cepelinai after a Zeppelin airship. The dish definitely comes with harsh reminders, and it's no wonder many chefs in the city are not willing to talk about it or even revamp the dish, even if they may still eat it at home with their families (as three chefs told me during my visit).

It is one of our traditional foods, no doubt.

Nida Degutiene, a food blogger and author who arrived in Australia in 2021, says that she remembers eating cepelinai as a child.

"It is one of our traditional foods, no doubt, but you must take into consideration the fact that potatoes arrived to Europe and to Lithuania in [the] late 1910s, so cepelinai, as every other potato dish (and Lithuanian cuisine has plenty of potato dishes besides cepelinai), are a relatively recent addition to Lithuanian cuisine," she says. "Most likely cepelinai (as well as the other potato dishes) have been developed and introduced by Lithuanian Jews who in [the] early 20th Century ran various motels and shops, and in food scarcity years (during and after WWI) potatoes were an inexpensive ingredient available all year round, which could feed many people."

She thinks it may be more popular in Lithuanian communities living overseas.

"Interestingly enough (and this is still a very much unanswered question for Lithuanian scholars and food historians), Lithuanian communities in emigration consider cepelinai as the main and only traditional dish (contrary to how it is seen in Lithuania)."

When she visits Lithuanian communities in Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide or Geelong, she is offered cepelinai a lot. "These communities are cooking cepelinai on every occasion. To be honest, I have not seen (and certainly not eaten) as much cepelinai in my 50 years spent in Lithuania as I have seen in 2 years here in Australia."

These communities are cooking cepelinai on every occasion.

Despite this, no trip to Vilnius or anywhere in Lithuania would be complete without eating at a traditional restaurant like Lokys because it helps travellers understand the history of a resilient country reclaiming its identity.

For those who are not able to visit Lithuania, Degutiene has some advice: "The recipe for cepelinai is extremely simple at first glance, but they are always very different in every kitchen. It depends on the sort of potatoes one is using, but most importantly – on a meat filling (how good is the meat, what spices do you add, and last but not least – how much of a filling can you stack inside without breaking the dough)."

In her family home, her dad often shapes cepelinai. "The size of a dumpling always is according to the size of a hand of who is shaping them. My mum's cepelinai would be smaller and I remember we would always compete who can eat the most," she says.

Like all good dumplings, they must come with a great sauce. "Meat cepelinai would be served with rendered bacon (or speck) and sour cream," she says. "You see, every dish in Lithuanian cuisine MUST have a huge dollop of sour cream and the ones filled with cottage cheese would be served with warm melted butter and sour cream sauce." And who are we to break tradition?

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Rita Kersulyte-Ryckova's cepelinai

Serves 6

Ingredients

• 4 kg potatoes 
• 500 g minced meat (usually pork, although other meat can be used as well) 
• 2 onions
• 1 tbsp black pepper 
• 2 tbsp salt 
• 200 ml sour cream, optional
• 200 ml bacon, optional

Method

1. Wash and boil 1 kg of potatoes with the skins on. Let them cool then peel and rice them with a potato ricer. If you don't have a potato ricer, use a food mill to mash them as smoothly as you can. 
2. Peel the remaining 3 kg potatoes and grate them finely. Squeeze the grated potato through a muslin cloth or a tea towel, making it as dry as possible. Set the potato liquid aside for several minutes so the potato starch settles at the bottom of the bowl.
3. Pour the potato liquid into a pot, making sure to reserve the potato starch. Add water and keep to the side. This is for cooking the dumplings later.
4. Mix the potato starch with both potato mash and grated potato in a bowl. Add salt. Adding more boiled potatoes will make the potato dough softer, and adding more grated potatoes will make it firmer.
5. Add finely chopped onion, salt and pepper to the pork (or other meat) mince and mix well. You may also add herbs to the meat, like finely chopped dill or parsley. 
6. Spread a piece of potato dough onto the palm of your hand and place a tablespoon of the meat in the middle. Fold the potato pattie to form an oval or zeppelin shape. Seal the edges.
7. Bring the large pot of water with potato liquid to a boil and add a large pinch of salt. Carefully place the cepelinai in. Bring to a boil again and stir gently occasionally. When the dumplings rise to the surface, cook them for another 15-20 minutes then take them out. 
8. Serve boiled cepelinlai either with sour cream or sour cream and bits of fried bacon (chop bacon and fry it, then add finely chopped onion and fry until crisp).

Note

• The most important part of making cepelinai is choosing the right kind of potatoes. They should be starchy. Watery potatoes with more moisture aren't a good choice for this dish.
• A potato masher is not usually enough to make the potatoes as smooth as they need to be.
• You can use other fillings, for example, cottage cheese mixed with tarragon, dill and mint, a mushroom filling with fried onions, liver, kidney or other.
• If the cepelinai isn't starchy enough, add a little starch mixed with cold water to the pot of boiling water, so that the potato dough doesn't fall apart.
• If you have leftover grated dough, you can make thick pancakes without fillings, and boil them as well.