🇮🇹 Italy and 🇦🇹 Austria · Trentino-Alto Adige / South Tyrol and Tyrol; southern Brazil via Italian immigrants

Canederli in brodoTyrolean bread dumpling soup

Bread dumplings (with speck, cheese or liver) simmered and served in a clear meat broth.

Origin and history

Canederli, from the German Knödel, are the bread dumplings of the Tyrol, on both sides of today's Austrian-Italian border, born from the thrift of using stale bread. A famous Romanesque fresco in the castle chapel of Hocheppan near Bolzano, consecrated in 1131, shows a woman lifting a dumpling from a pot over the fire and tasting it, an early image of the dish. Speck dumplings in beef broth remain a staple of South Tyrolean and Trentino tables and mountain huts.

Make it at home

Makes: 4 servings (8 dumplings)
Total time: 1 h 15 min
Hands-on: 35 min

Ingredients

Metric US

250 g9 oz stale white bread or bread rolls (Knödelbrot), cut in 5 mm (1/4 in) cubes, crust left on
200 ml3/4 cup + 1 tbsp milk, lukewarm
1 small onion, very finely chopped
20 g1 1/2 tbsp butter
120 g4 oz Speck Alto Adige / Südtiroler Speck PGI, rind removed, in very small dice
3 eggs
2 tbsp parsley and chives, finely chopped
2–3 tbsp plain flour, only as much as needed to bind
salt, black pepper and a little grated nutmeg
1.5 L6 1/3 cups clear beef broth (Fleischsuppe / brodo di carne), homemade from beef and soup vegetables, well seasoned
1 tbsp chives, finely snipped, to serve

Method

1. Put the bread cubes in a large bowl, pour the lukewarm milk over them, mix and leave covered for 15–20 minutes so the bread softens.
2. Meanwhile, soften the onion in the butter over low heat for about 5 minutes without letting it colour; add the speck, stir for a minute, then let the mixture cool.
3. Beat the eggs with the parsley, a pinch of salt, pepper and nutmeg.
4. Add the onion and speck and the beaten eggs to the bread and work everything together with your hands.
5. Sprinkle in the flour a spoonful at a time, just until the mixture holds together when squeezed; it should stay moist, not stiff.
6. Cover and let the mixture rest for 15 minutes.
7. With wet hands, shape 8 round dumplings about 6 cm (2 1/2 in) across, pressing each firmly so it holds together.
8. Bring a wide pan of salted water to a gentle simmer and cook one test dumpling for a few minutes; if it starts to fall apart, work a little more flour into the mixture.
9. Slide in the dumplings and simmer gently, partly covered, for 15–20 minutes, without letting the water boil hard; they are ready when they float and are firm.
10. Meanwhile, bring the broth to the boil and check the seasoning.
11. Lift the dumplings out with a slotted spoon, put two in each warmed soup plate, ladle the hot broth over them and scatter with chives.

Notes

Total time: 1 h 15 min (with ready-made broth); 4 h with homemade broth.
Canederli (Knödel) are a frugal dish of stale bread, and South Tyrol and Trentino make many kinds: speck is the classic in broth; cheese (Kaspressknödel or Käseknödel), liver (Leberknödel, a Tyrolean favourite in broth), spinach or wild herbs are common alternatives. Trentino cooks often add lucanica sausage or grated Trentingrana cheese to the mixture.
Some cooks simmer the dumplings directly in the broth. Cooking them in salted water first keeps the broth clear, which is the usual practice in South Tyrolean kitchens.
The same dumplings are served without broth: drained and topped with melted butter and grated cheese, or as a side dish with goulash, roast pork or sauerkraut.
Outside the Alps, use a good unsmoked bacon or pancetta instead of speck (the flavour is less smoky and spiced) and a firm white loaf dried overnight in cubes.
The dumpling mixture is best shaped on the day; cooked canederli keep a day in the refrigerator and can be reheated in the simmering broth.
Italian immigrants from Trentino carried canederli to southern Brazil, where 'sopa de canederli' (also 'calendri') is part of the Italian-immigrant cooking of Rio Grande do Sul.

Adapted from IDM Südtirol (suedtirol.info): Speckknödel in der Fleischsuppe, Visit Trentino: Ricetta canederli, and Dissapore: Canederli allo speck, la ricetta originale del Trentino.