@“captain”#p65025 No problem at all.
In the beef version there are no chickpeas (I add them to help build extra body and flavour) and even the potato is optional. I also only add the ginger in the meat-free version, to help layer in some extra flavour.
About 1kg of chuck steak is the usual go to, cut in to very large cubes. When you think “yep, that's pretty big, that will do” go larger and you‘ll probably be ok. They will shrink considerably while cooking. If you can’t get chuck steak, any stewing beef is what you are after – it needs to be something with lots of collagen that will break down during cooking. If you try putting something like an eye fillet in there it will be a disaster, at the end you will have extremely dry, stringy, likely disintegrated meat rather than large, tender chunks.
Brown the meat (in batches) in the pot first, to develop some colouring on the meat and help build up a fond in the pot. Take the out and store in a covered bowl after each batch. Then do the onions, add the meat back (with any juices) to the pot after blooming the spices and deglazing. Wine can be used to deglaze here rather than apple juice, if you like.
When adding the small amount of soy and balsamic, you can also add approx 1tsp of worcestershire sauce or 1tsp of fish sauce as an extra umami booster.
If you're adding potato, you probably only want approx 400-500 grams (about 1 pound) and add it after about 1 hour of cooking time at the very low simmer with the meat. Total cooking time should be approx 3.5 - 4 hours.
For the knödel, one egg can be stirred through the mixture before adding the flour. Also, I usually just add regular milk. I would probably avoid whatever that “half and half” stuff is you can get in the US, I don't think you want to add cream.