Poppy seed people! I still have more questions. Does boiling it FIRST take away

M

marilynfl

Moderator
the bitterness? I googled every Hungarian recipe I could find and there is ABSOLUTELY NO CONSISTENCY in this question. Some people boil it once, some three times, but most don't boil it at all before grinding. They just add either boiling water and stir...or cook some of the ingredients until boiling and then add the ground poppy seeds.

I know for a fact that boiling walnuts for a short period takes away the tannin bitterness. It's a definite step I always do when making candied walnuts. So I wondered if poppy seed was the same. Like quinoa has a bitter coating to discourage birds (I think) and you're supposed to rinse them thoroughly to remove it.

Second version of poppy seed roll was much better than jarred stuff (by using Jo Cooks fresh-ground recipe with citrus zest), but still not enough to add this to a "I must make this every year" kind of pastry.

 
I missed what you were making? I am not a baker, but swear by a few of my families favorites.

I recall your mom was a huge strudel maker. If you are making a poppyseed filling, then let me search my stuff for a good recipe.

 
Rec: from George Lang, Poppyseed Filling (Makos Toltelek)

His recipes are great. My family in Buffalo uses this recipe. Another one to search is by Gundel (restaurant). I did not search that one, but it would be interesting to see if they have one on line.

Here's mine from my cookbook:

3/4 cup vanilla sugar
2 eggs, separated
1 Tbspn flour
Grated rind of 1/2 lemon
6 Tbsp of sweet butter
1 cup hot milk
1/2 lb poppyseeds, ground
1/4 cup raisins
1 apple, peeled, cored and grated

- Whip vanilla sugar and egg youls till smooth. Add four, lemon rind, butter and finally hot milk. Bring to a summer and mix in the ground poppy seeds.

- When the mixture starts simmering again, turn off heat. Let the filling cool.

- When mixture is cool, mix in raisins and grated apple. Whip the egg whites till stiff and fold them into the filling. If it is too thick, add a lil cold water.

- Place filling on top of prepared sheet of strudel dough and proceed exactly as described in the basic recipe. (That is so funny!.... I have not typed that part out for you! Let me know, as it sounds like it should be "exactly".....But w. your strudel background, you may not need it!)

- Bake for 30 min

Note: Although many traditional recipes mix poppyseed w apricot jam, you will find grated apple a wonderful taste addition. For yet another variation, reduce poppyseed to 1/4 pound and instead of the apple use 1 pound pumpkin, diced and cooked. The poppyseed must be cooked before baking so that they do not become hardened during the baking process.

 
Thanks Barb. What I'm actually trying to find more about is the *ground poppy seed* process.

Are the seeds soaked before grinding?
Are the seeds boiled before grinding?
Are they ground au natural?
Do naked nymphs dance around them in a light of a gibbous moon while spinning grinding plates?

(...I seem to have gotten off-track...)

Anyway, I'm looking for ingredient information now. How to process it is conflicting information on the Internet.

 
I grind then add to ingredients that are almost boiling. But here is an idea, Marilyn

But then I don't find the poppy seeds to be bitter enough to bother me. Don't know if it has anything to do with the fact that I keep poppy seeds in the freezer or not. Also don't know if there is a quality difference depending on where you get the poppy seeds.

Got an idea: why not try to take a small batch of poppy seeds and roast them in the oven for a while- then grind and see if that helps. I have never done that but I make things like hamburger buns, etc. with poppy seeds on top that go into the oven to bake and the poppy seeds are always yummy.

 
When i was a kid, my mom would give me the dry loose seeds to grind, no prepping before grinding and

adding to the kifli. It has enough oils to bind the ground seeds together.

 
Thanks all. You guys are more helpful than the entire Internet. I'm running tests now on

various methods to see if I can tell a difference. It will be used for a poppy seed roll for Mom.

 
hey barb...look at the last sentence of George Lang's recipe

"The poppyseed must be cooked before baking so that they do not become hardened during the baking process.

HA! So, you have to cook the filling then add the poppyseed or cook the filling with the poppyseed in it or cook the poppyseed first and add it to the hot filling (which would continue cook it).


Thanks Barb, Thanks George

 
Marilyn, my friend Rick Rodgers wrote Kaffeehaus, a dessert book. He had this to say...

Hope this helps.

Forward from Rick:
To answer the poppy seed question, my Hungarian friends said they considered boiling poppy seeds an old-fashioned step that didn’t need to be done any more. They just ground the darned things. If they wanted a true paste, then maybe they were boiling in milk or water with sugar until softened before grinding. For example, I recall that the filling for the kipfli cookies is boiled. The “poppy seed roll” she refers to is probably biegli, which my dear friend Eva would send every Christmas. It is one of those things, like fruitcake, that some people like more than others, so I am not surprised that your friend isn’t putting it on her Must Make List. The dough is supposed to be a little heavy so it doesn’t change texture too much as it ages. If she wants something a bit more “American” in flavor, I’d try a sweet yeast dough like the one used for cinnamon buns, with a homemade poppy seed filling. (Just ground up, not boiled.)

http://www.amazon.com/Kaffeehaus-Exquisite-Desserts-Classic-Budapest/dp/0609604538/ref=sr_1_8?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1463967981&sr=1-8&keywords=rick+rodgers

 
Too bizarre! I had ordered *Kaffeehaus: Exquisite Desserts from the Classic Caf

and "it's on the way!" according to my Amazon tracking. Ordered his book last week when I started this whole poppy seed thing.

Many thanks to you for asking Rick for the additional information. Oddly enough, I AM using my cinnamon roll dough and I did try just grinding them up....that's the bitter taste I don't like. I ran some tests yesterday and came up with a filling I can live with then baked a roll to ship up to Mom

Ha! Isn't this a small world.

 
Awesome! I grabbed his book looking for more info. There's a nice section on poppy seed but it

didn't address your issue, so I popped him a note. We've talked before and he's super helpful.

On that bitterness note, the book says that poppy seeds tend to go rancid. I wonder if another vendor/source would help? Somewhere with higher turnover?

 
That is a very interesting question

I always assumed it was a textural issue with the grind/boil/grind/etc. step on poppy seeds in German pastry recipes. It can be found every way in my German language cookbooks:

add whole---no grind, no cook--
no grind---cook, then add whole-
grind, then cook--
grind, add without cooking,
etc.

I'm not a big fan of poppy seed filling so I've never made any of the recipes that use them, although I do have a can of poppy seed filling still in the fridge that I bought at Dallmayr in München ca. 2006.

As for the opiates involved in the seed, there is a raging debate going on about that, especially after all the recent deaths from kids brewing poppy seed tea and overdosing on morphine and codeine. The baking process must neutralize the opiates with the prolonged heat, otherwise, why aren't lovers of poppy seed strudel overdosing from having a second and third helping of Oma's Mohnstrudel?

Keep us posted if you find out anything definite. I checked both of Shirley Corriher's books and there is no mention of poppy seeds. A rather glaring omission?

 
Kaffeehaus is a great book that presents

very authentic Austro-Hungarian recipes in English translation. So often, OK, most of the time, American recipes purporting to be authentic are so dumbed down and Americanized that the end result is nothing like the original. Anyway, yay on Kaffeehaus. I really like that book and have promoted it on here a few times.

 
But it is dependent on the recipe...

if the poppy seeds are being baked in a very moist wet environment, they're not going to be in danger of drying out/hardening.

 
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