Dushpara, or Dumplings to Cleanse a Soul

Alexa K Moon

Ingredients

  • 1 kg lamb meat, butchered by a Shochet

  • 1/3 cup fresh coriander

  • 3 cups white flour, sifted

  • 1 tsp salt

  • 2 large onions, chopped and caramelized

  • 3 tbsp olive oil

  • 1 incantation bowl, made by a Sopher

  • 2 eggs

  • 3 fingernails of a Tzadik

  • 1 cup water

  • 1 possessed sister, tied firmly to a chair

    *Warning: Do NOT substitute ingredients.

Directions

  1. Cut lamb into squares and feed it to your meat grinder along with coriander. Combine with onions. Blindfold your sister so the demon can’t peek through her eyes.

  2. Pour flour into a bowl, forming an indent in the middle. Crack two eggs inside. Scatter half a teaspoon of salt. Add a cup of water and a tablespoon of olive oil while stirring fast.
    Mix until no flour is left, the dough is elastic, and your arms burn in agony. Cover with a towel and let rest for fifteen minutes.
    Use the time to spill some olive oil over the crown of your head while reciting the Shema prayer three times.

  3. Form a ball of dough, lightly flour a rolling pin and start rolling it until it’s thin and even throughout. Grind righteous man’s fingernails into powder, then sprinkle over dough. If your sister drools like a rabid dog and screams profanities in Aramaic, don’t panic. The demon has figured out it’s losing.

  4. Use a cup to cut circles in the dough. Fill them with meat mixture. Form a braid to close each dumpling, stitching the dough together.

  5. Cut a lock of your sister’s hair and put it in a tea strainer. Throw into boiling water, then plop dumplings in, one by one.

  6. When they float, ladle liquid into the incantation bowl. Your sister’s body is going to convulse. Don’t be frightened, it’s normal.

  7. Stand over her while reading the banishment contract scrawled on the bowl’s interior.

    If your chosen Sopher is a professional, it should sound like this: “May there be healing from heaven for ‘your sister’s name’ daughter of ‘mother’s name’. I adjure you, demon, that you should leave and not become ‘your sister’s name’, neither by night nor by day. For if you persecute the body, head, and eye sockets of this child, angels will come down to break and excommunicate you. This is a formal dismissal according to the laws of the daughter of Jacob, from this day and forever. Amen amen sela, hallelujah.”

  8. A wave of black smoke will spill from your sister’s mouth as soon as you’re done chanting. Ensure it faces the bowl’s interior, where the Hebrew letters will absorb its essence, as the liquid vaporizes.

  9. Bury the bowl in your backyard, five inches deep, face down.

  10. Serve the dumplings to your family with a side of pomegranate gravy. Give yourself a pat on the back. Well done! You liberated the little brat, ensuring your family’s safety for at least a generation.

About the author:

 

Alexa K Moon is a Mountain Jewish horror writer and immigrant from Azerbaijan, whose work is often inspired by the legends and lore of her ancestry. Fascinated by the macabre, she’s that 90s kid who grew up hiding Stephen King books from her mother. She writes short stories while pursuing a BA in Creative Writing. Find her on Twitter (@alexakmoon) and online (alexakmoon.com).

This site is a speculative fiction project.

Do not make any of these recipes.

They’re impossible, dangerous, and not tasty.