The original name for Canederli is Knödel. It comes from the German language because the original recipe comes almost certainly from Bavaria. Knödel in the past were simple stale bread meatballs. The stale bread was cut into cubes then mixed with milk or water and eggs.
Today the recipe is rich of tasty ingredients such as chive, eggs, onion, speck or sausage, spinach, cheese or mushrooms. It is now part of the Italian culinary tradition especially of the South Tyrolean tradition.
Canederli or Knödel means dumpling. The Canederli look like a big bread dumpling. The main ingredient is stale bread. So, it is a very poor dish from the farmer tradition. Poor people used to cook with leftovers and the dumplings are a part of this popular tradition. In South Tyrol the traditional dumpling’s dough has speak and chive in it. The best way of cooking the Canederli is in a meat broth.
This kind of recipe is very old. Since medieval times, Italians from Trentino Alto Adige knew the Canederli recipe. They used to eat it and there’s a picture that proves it. In a medieval castel near Bolzano, there is an old fresco representing a woman eating Canerderli. This is an important testimony that shows us how old the recipe is in the Italian traditional cuisine such as in German cuisine.
There’s even an Italian legend about the birth of the dumpling in Trentino Alto Adige. The legend tells a story of an army of hungry landsknechts from the sixteenth century. The landsknechts asked for food to the owner of a tavern and the wife’s owner and his daughter to satisfy them as quickly as possible, prepared to them some dumpling. They used only some ingredients they have. A bunch of chive, some bread and flour, eggs, and a little bit of speak. Then cook the dough in boiled water. It was a success. Nobody was killed because the soldiers were so satisfied they fell asleep like little angels.
Something rather unusual for such bad men!
Wash and peel the vegetables for the broth, then cook them in water with the beef. Cook for 1 h and set aside.
Wash the onion and chop it finely, then chop the speak into little cubes.
Let the butter melt in a pan then add the onion and the speck. Browned turning from time to time, then turn of the fire and set aside.
Chop finely some parsley and some chive then chop the bread into little cubes. Take a bowl and put the bread into it then add some milk (almost 200 g). The dough had to be soft, so add more milk if it is too dry. After that add: eggs, chive and parsley you chop before.
Add to the dough the speak and onion. If the dough is too dry add some more milk. Then start to make the first dumpling. It has to be big as a tennis ball. Put the dumplings on a tray.
Cook the dumpling (should be almost ten) in a hot meat broth. Then served.
You could freeze the canederli and then cook them still frozen in hot broth. You could put mushrooms, cheese or spinach to replace the speak and taste it not in broth but with melt butter on top.
We are Italians. We live in Italy. We love Italian food. PizzaCappuccino is the worldwide landmark for the authentic Italian recipes and the best Italian food. Our daily mission is to collect only the best authentic traditional Italian recipes. Cook Italian, Eat Italian!
