Meet the Matzo Ball’s Italian Cousin
If I say “bread dumplings,” do you say, “Yay!”? Probably not. And that is the challenge before me, because you should feel very excited about these bread dumplings, or canederli as they’re called in Italian. They are far better than they will ever sound on paper.
Canederli come from northeastern Italy, especially around Trentino-Alto Adige near the Austrian border. The name is the Italian form of the German “knödel,” which refers to a broad class of bread dumplings eaten throughout Central and Eastern Europe. For many American readers, canederli may remind them of matzo balls, the Ashkenazi Jewish version of this very same type of dish. In fact, the Yiddish word for matzo balls is knaidlach. Can you see where this is going? Knaidlach, canederli—these are close cousins in both name and form, and it’s not an exaggeration to say that canederli are something like matzo balls done Italian style.
I don’t want to suggest that one descends directly from the other. Canederli are not Italian matzo balls, nor are matzo balls Jewish canederli. But they are related, so let’s compare. In terms of seasoning, canederli are often loaded with grated Parmigiano-Reggiano, sautéed onions and pork (either speck, which is a cured and smoked ham, or Italian sausage), spices like black pepper and nutmeg, and minced herbs like parsley. Canederli lack leaveners such as the baking powder and carbonated water that are common in matzo balls, and they are denser than the floaters many strive for with matzo balls. In canederli, pork fat and butter take the place of a matzo balls’ schmaltz (or, less deliciously, oil), while the cheese adds extra savory flavor and umami.
In the case of matzo balls, the bread is crushed matzo, which starts off dry like a cracker right out of the box, while canederli are built on a technique that Italians do so well, which is taking leftover, stale bread and turning it into something improbably delicious. One thing matzo balls and canederli have in common: They’re both poached in chicken broth, and the quality of that broth matters.
The beauty of canederli, aside from their economic use of stale bread that might otherwise end up in the trash, is that they are extremely adaptable. You have a lot of options for the bread and can play quite a bit with the seasonings. The following tips should set you up for success.
Choose Your Own Breadventure
Matzo balls are one point of comparison for canederli, but I also want to point out their relationship to meatballs. As I’ve written before, many meatball recipes contain a panade—moistened bread or breadcrumbs—which adds tenderness and moisture to what would otherwise be a heavy orb of meat. Think of a classic Italian-American meatball’s ingredients, including the panade, eggs, onion, garlic, minced pancetta or other fatty pork products, spices, herbs, cheese, and seasonings, plus of course the ground meat. Canederli are basically the same formula…minus the ground meat. It’s almost like the panade takes over the whole thing and becomes the meatball. The fact that this is arguably as delicious as a meatball is a testament to the clever frugality of Italian cooks.
The bread is the most critical ingredient in canederli, and it’s the trickiest because it’s the most variable. I’ve seen cooks make canederli from plain fine breadcrumbs, rock-hard chunks of stale bread that have been processed to coarse breadcrumbs, and cubes of day-old bread that’s not at its prime but also hasn’t totally turned to stone. And while I haven’t seen it, I know from experience you can also make canederli with oven-dried bread, if you find yourself in a situation where you want to make these and don’t actually have stale bread kicking around.
The challenge, given all these bread possibilities, is how much hydration in the form of milk is needed to sufficiently wet the bread so that it can form balls that won’t crumble and fall apart—the more stale and dehydrated the bread, the more hydration it requires. From the perspective of a recipe developer like myself, this means I can’t really give you one perfect ratio of bread to milk, since it’s going to depend on the bread (or breadcrumbs) you’re using.
The good news is the recipe is easily tweaked, and it’s what you’ll need to do when making these at home: Start with a basic ratio of equal parts by weight of bread to milk. Then, if the mixture is too crumbly, simply add more milk bit by bit until it begins to hold together. Conversely, if it’s too wet and pasty, incorporate dry breadcrumbs to soak up some of the excess liquid.
I’ve made canederli with bread and breadcrumbs of varying dryness levels, and in terms of overall preference, I find this is one recipe where the drier, the better. Fresher bread, even when not overly hydrated, has a tendency to make denser, pastier canederli. The texture of canederli made from totally dried bread is lighter and less compacted, which you can see in the photo above—the one on the left is from less stale day-old diced bread while the one on the right with the airier structure was made from very stale homemade breadcrumbs. My advice is if your bread isn’t stale enough, pop it in a low oven and dry it out.
Porky Picks
In Italian cooking, pork’s role as a flavoring is just as important, if not more, than its role as a primary protein. You can see this in all the dishes in which cured pork products such as pancetta, guanciale, and prosciutto add fat, savoriness, saltiness, and depth, but not a substantial amount of actual meat. In canederli, the pork is playing just such a seasoning role, and the fun part is you can choose what to put in it.
Two of the most common options are speck and crumbled Italian sausage. Speck is a cured and smoked ham—think prosciutto but smoky—that comes from the same region as canederli. As for the sausage, In the Alto Adige, they would use local varieties of sausage, but we can just grab a nice big link of fennel-flavored “Italian” sausage or some other similar option; it won’t be the same as the local Italian sausages but it’ll taste great.
No matter which pork you choose, the basic process is the same: sauté minced onion in butter or oil until softened, add the minced speck or crumbled sausage, and then cook. The speck will be ready sooner since it’s in smaller pieces and cured, whereas the sausage takes a couple extra minutes to break up and cook through. Otherwise, it’s a one-to-one swap, so feel free to use either.
Do Not Sleep on the Broth
Just as with matzo ball soup, a bad broth can ruin otherwise good bread dumplings. A good broth, though, doesn’t necessarily require a lot of work. To make the rich broth you see in the photo above, I started with some store-bought chicken stock (not boxed, but made by the butcher) and then quickly made a more intense stock by cooking it in a pressure cooker with some extra chicken bones and vegetables like onion, carrot, celery, garlic, and herbs.
To develop that really rich brown color, I left the onion skins on the onion, which is a great trick that has both visual and flavor impacts. The whole thing took me about 30 minutes. (And to be clear, you don’t need to make stock with stock—you can do the same thing with water, it’ll just be a little less rich.)
Serving Options
There are two classic ways to serve canederli, and one hybrid way that I’m particularly fond of. The classics are to either serve the canederli in a bowl with the broth, almost exactly the way matzo balls are usually served, or to put them on a plate and spoon browned butter with frizzled sage on top. I’m firmly in the why not both? camp, and have found the most satisfying servings of canederli to have both a bit of broth and the sage butter.
And of course some more cheese on top, because who wouldn’t want that?
In a large mixing bowl, stir together bread with milk until bread is evenly moistened. Set aside to allow milk to fully soak in.
In a medium skillet, melt 2 tablespoons butter over medium-high heat. Add onion and cook, stirring, until softened but not browned, about 3 minutes. Add speck or sausage, and cook, stirring (and breaking up sausage into small pieces if using sausage), until onion is fully tender and, if using sausage, sausage is cooked through, about 2 minutes for speck and 5 minutes for sausage. Set aside to cool slightly.
Add eggs, cheese, parsley, salt, pepper, and nutmeg (if using). Using clean hands, mix until all ingredients are fully incorporated. Add onion-pork mixture and mix once more to fully incorporate.
Make a test bread dumpling: If mixture seems too dry to hold together when forming balls (you can test this by trying to make a ball), add more milk 1 tablespoon at a time until sufficiently moistened; if mixture seems too wet, dense, and pasty, add additional breadcrumbs 1 tablespoon at a time until excess moisture has been absorbed but mixture is still able to hold a ball without falling apart.
Line a baking sheet with parchment. Using lightly moistened hands, roll bread mixture into roughly 1 1/2- to 2-inch balls, then set on prepared baking sheet.
In a large saucepan or small pot or Dutch oven, heat broth until simmering (season with salt, if needed). Poach bread dumplings until fully heated through and floating on the surface, about 15 minutes. (You should be able to poach all of the dumplings at once, but if you have trouble fitting them all, work in batches to avoid overcrowding.)
Meanwhile, if making frizzled sage, in a clean skillet, melt optional remaining 4 tablespoons butter over medium-high heat until foaming. Toss in sage leaves and cook, swirling, until frizzled, about 1 minute. Season with salt.
To serve: You can either serve the poached dumplings on plates without the broth, spooning the frizzles sage leaves and butter on top, along with a sprinkling of grated cheese, or you can ladle some of the broth into serving bowls and set the dumplings in that, again sprinkling cheese on top (or you can do what I like to, which is to serve them in some broth with the frizzled sage and butter spooned on top, plus the cheese).
Notes
You have a lot of options with the bread you use. You can use store-bought breadcrumbs, very stale bread that you process into course or fine breadcrumbs in a food processor, or semi-stale bread that is past its prime but not yet a rock. My experience is that the best canederli come from older, drier, staler bread, so I would encourage you to oven-dry any bread that still has some softness and moisture before using (cut it into cubes, pop it in a low oven around 300°F/150°C, and cook it until it’s dried out but not deeply browned). You can leave the crusts on your bread or remove them, whichever appeals more.
Depending on the bread you use, you may need to adjust by adding more milk to moisten it more so the dumpling balls hold together, or in some cases dry it out with breadcrumbs if the moisture is too wet and pasty.
Make-Ahead and Storage
The uncooked canederli can be formed, set on a parchment-lined baking sheet, wrapped in plastic, and refrigerated for up to 1 day before cooking. Once cooked, leftover canederli can be cooled and stored in the broth; reheat gently before serving.
