Happy and Sad Times: An Eastern European Family Connects Through Food

In this installment of Grandmas Project, filmmaker Iva Radivojevic travels to Zagreb, Croatia to visit her beloved grandmother Dragica. Together they make knedle, a traditonal plum dumpling dish found in Eastern and Central Europe. Knedle is made with potatoes and has a gnocchi-like dessert consistency. It is filled with apricots or plums and has sugar sprinkled on top. Iva and her grandmother discuss Iva's migration out of her homeland in Yugoslavia to the island of Cyprus and the difficult assimilation she had there as a child, and how her grandmother's frequent visits to Cyprus made it more like home. In this recipe for knedle, you will need:

•     potatoes
•     flour
•     baking powder
•     olive oil
•     salt
•     plums
•     apricots
•     bread crumbs
•     butter
•     sugar 

1. Boil and then mash the potatoes, take the mixture, add flour, baking powder, salt and olive oil. Massage thoroughly into a solid mass. Take a handful roll in a ball, in the middle add apricot/plum and roll into a firm ball. Repeat until the mixture is done. Add all balls to boiling water to cook for 10min.
2. In the meantime, melt butter in a pan, add bread crumbs and fry until golden.

3. Warm up a pan in the oven and place all the balls in a pan once they are finished cooking. Take the bread crumb mixture and season each ball, like gravy. This is to be repeated once the Kendla is cut open and served, then add sugar on top and eat.