In my grandmother Eva's kitchen in Kent, I watched Gretel Beer make Topfentascherln on a Tuesday afternoon like it was nothing. Boiled potatoes from lunch, a block of quark from the fridge, a handful of raisins she'd been soaking in rum since breakfast. She rolled the dough on the same wooden board she used for everything, cut it into squares with a knife instead of a cutter, spooned the filling in, pressed the edges shut with her thumb. Thirty minutes, start to finish. That's the kind of cooking this is.

Topfentascherln are filled pockets made from Kartoffelteig, a soft potato dough that Austrian cooks use for half a dozen different Mehlspeisen. The dough is gentle, almost fragile. You work it as little as possible because the starch in the cooked potatoes gives it structure, not gluten. The filling is Topfen, the fresh curd cheese Austrians use the way the French use butter: in everything sweet and quite a few things savory. Mixed with egg yolk, sugar, lemon zest, Vanillezucker, and raisins that have been sitting in rum long enough to forget they were ever dry.

You boil them in salted water until they float, then you finish them abgeschmalzt: tossed in a pan with butter that's been cooked past golden to a deep hazelnut brown, with breadcrumbs toasted in that same butter until they're crunchy and fragrant. A dusting of powdered sugar at the table. That's it. This is good Austrian home cooking, the kind of dish that doesn't announce itself but stays with you long after the plate is clean.