Danielle's Squash Dumplings

This was kind of a weird recipe for me. In the end, the dumplings tasted pretty good. But the process was off.

Alton says at the beginning of the recipe (in the book) that this was not a favorite with viewers, but I decided to give it a shot anyway. The biggest complaint in the online reviews seemed to be that the dough was really wet and required way more flour than called for. In the book, Alton added weights to the amount of squash and potato you need, presumably to address the wetness issue. I weighed my ingredients, but I made a mistake and used double the potato I was supposed to (I was making a half batch and forgot to halve the potato). I don't know if that's why my dough ended up so loose, but like many of the online reviewers, I had to add TONS of extra flour... and I still had a wet dough that was difficult to work with.

After adding lots and lots of extra flour, I decided I better stop adding more because I was sure I had already overworked the dough. There was no way I was going to be able to roll out the dough so I just grabbed clumps of dough, rolled it in my hands, and plopped it in the boiling water.

My dumplings were kind of tough, but they tasted pretty good. I loved the sage flavor, but it was overpowering when I got an actual piece of sage in my bite. I think when I make these again (I have lots of dough still in the fridge), I'll add the sage to the butter while it browns but then skim it out before adding the dumplings.

One of the online reviewers said she squeezed her squash with paper towels before mashing it to get rid of excess water. She said she was able to get a good texture just with the amount of flour called for in the recipe. I wonder why Alton doesn't say to do this in his recipe...