I’m very taken with canederli from Italy’s Trentino-Alto Adige region. Generally speaking, the area has a fascinating culinary tradition with a mix of Italian and Austrian dishes where you can sometimes get the best of both worlds. One of the signature dishes of Alto Adige is these bread dumplings filled with smoked speck ham and herbs. Mmmm….!

As far as I’m concerned to make homemade canederli is probably an art beyond my culinary capabilities, but if you’d like to try here goes. For four people you need: 150 grams of bread crumbs, 100 grams of “grey cheese” from the Valle Aurina (a very light cheese with little fat and a distinctive acidic taste. It may in time develop mould), 100 ml of milk, two eggs, one tablespoon of flour, and 50 grams of chopped speck or ham. I recommend speck for its lovely smoky flavour. If you’re a vegetarian, you can forego this ingredient.

First up, heat the milk and melt half the cheese in the milk. Chop the other half into small cubes. Chop the speck, likewise into small pieces. Use the eggs to create a kind of dough with the bread crumbs, using the milk with the melted cheese, the flour and integrating the speck. When you have a consistent mixture, let it rest for about 15 minutes, before forming smaller dumplings from the mixture.

The cooking time with canederli is not easy, and our recipe suggests you should first fry the dumplings briefly in a little oil before boiling them. Generally cooking canederli involves boiling in water, or serving in broth almost like a soup. You can use some melted butter when serving dry, or even experiment with some sauerkraut.

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