COPPERWhat is the national dish of Lithuania?
The national dish of Lithuania is cepelinai: large zeppelin-shaped dumplings made from grated raw potato and mashed boiled potato, stuffed with ground meat, curd cheese or mushrooms, then boiled. They are served under a sauce of fried bacon, onion and sour cream. Lithuania has no official national dish, but cepelinai are the one most often cited.
What are cepelinai?
Cepelinai (singular cepelinas) are potato dumplings, but not the smooth kind made from flour and mashed potato. The dough is mostly raw potato, grated fine and squeezed dry in a cloth, then bound with a smaller share of boiled, mashed potato. That raw potato gives cepelinai their dense, slightly translucent, chewy texture.
Each dumpling hides a filling. Ground pork with onion is the most common, but dry curd cheese, liver and mushrooms are all traditional. The finished dumpling is an oval pointed at both ends, which is where the name comes from: cepelinai means "zeppelins". They were originally called didžkukuliai and were renamed in 1900 after Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin, the pioneer of the rigid airship. Both names are still used in Lithuanian.
How cepelinai are made
Our cepelinai recipe starts with 2 kg of peeled potatoes. About 400 g are boiled and mashed; the other 1.6 kg are grated raw. The grated potato is squeezed hard in a cloth over a bowl, and the liquid is left to stand for 15 minutes so the white potato starch settles at the bottom. The water is poured off and that starch goes back into the dough with the mashed potato and a teaspoon of salt.
The filling is 500 g of ground pork mixed with a diced onion, salt, pepper and a few spoons of cold water to keep it juicy. A fistful of dough is flattened on a wet palm, filled with about 1½ tablespoons of meat, closed and rolled into an oval 10 to 15 cm long.
The dumplings cook for 25 to 30 minutes in salted water kept at a bare simmer. A hard boil splits them open, which is the most common way to ruin a batch.
What is served with cepelinai?
Cepelinai are almost never eaten plain. The standard topping is spirgai, a sauce built in a few minutes while the dumplings cook:
- 200 g of diced smoked bacon, fried until the fat renders;
- a chopped onion, cooked in that bacon fat;
- 200 g of sour cream, stirred in off the heat;
- the whole thing poured hot over the dumplings straight from the pot.
Where cepelinai come from
According to the Lithuanian encyclopedia Visuotinė lietuvių enciklopedija, the dish spread in Lithuania at the beginning of the 20th century from East Prussia. Potatoes themselves only became widespread in Lithuania in the 18th century, after which they became the most used vegetable in the country's recipes.
The same dumpling is made across the border in north-eastern Poland, where it is called kartacz ("grapeshot"). Related grated-potato dumplings exist in Sweden (kroppkaka), Norway (raspeball) and Germany (Kartoffelklöße). For the Polish side of the story, see what Poland counts as its national dish.
Is cepelinai the only candidate?
No law or decree names a Lithuanian national dish. Cepelinai are the dish that food references and travel guides cite most, but two others come up. Bigos, a stew of cabbage and meat, appears on some lists, including Wikipedia's list of national dishes. And šaltibarščiai, the cold pink beetroot soup, has been promoted as a national dish by Lithuania Travel, the country's tourism agency: in June 2020 it installed a 3-metre replica bowl of the soup at Vilnius airport and named its colour "Cold Pink".
Other dishes to know from Lithuania
Šaltibarščiai is made with 1 litre of cold kefir turned bright pink by 400 g of grated cooked beetroot, with cucumber, dill and spring onion. It is chilled for at least an hour and served with a halved hard-boiled egg and a separate bowl of hot boiled potatoes, never in the soup.
Kugelis is a baked potato pudding introduced through German influence. Finely grated potato is set with 250 ml of boiling milk, mixed with eggs, smoked bacon and its fat, then baked 70 to 80 minutes until the crust is deep brown, and rested 15 minutes before cutting so the slices hold. It also gets sour cream and bacon cracklings.
Next door, Latvia's best-known plate is built on grey peas and bacon: see the national dish of Latvia. For the wider family of potato, rye and dairy cooking, read our guide to Eastern European food, and find all three recipes on our page about the food of Lithuania.
The recipes
- Cepelinai🇱🇹 Lithuania · 2 hours
Kugelis🇱🇹 Lithuania · 2 hours and 10 minutes
Saltibarsciai🇱🇹 Lithuania · 2 hours and 50 minutes
Questions people ask
Why are cepelinai called zeppelins?
Their oval shape, pointed at both ends, resembles a Zeppelin airship. The dumplings were originally called didžkukuliai and were renamed in 1900 in honour of Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin.
Is cepelinai the official national dish of Lithuania?
No. Lithuania has no officially designated national dish, but cepelinai are the dish most often described as its national dish.
Are cepelinai Lithuanian or Polish?
They are most closely associated with Lithuania, but the same dumpling is made in north-eastern Poland under the name kartacz. In Lithuania it spread at the start of the 20th century from East Prussia.
What is served with cepelinai?
Cepelinai are served with spirgai, a hot sauce of fried smoked bacon, onion and sour cream poured over the dumplings.
What is the pink soup from Lithuania?
It is šaltibarščiai, a cold soup of kefir and grated beetroot with cucumber, dill and egg, eaten with hot boiled potatoes on the side. Here is our recipe.
Keep reading
- Traditional food of Lithuania: 13 dishes to know
- What is the national dish of Belarus?
- What is the national dish of the Czech Republic?
- What is the national dish of Estonia?
- What is the national dish of Hungary?
- What is the national dish of Latvia?