Excellent bread dumplings

Ingredients for 4 servings:

• 5 rolls, stale or dumpling bread
• 200 ml milk, lukewarm
• 100 g butter, browned
• 1 pinch of salt
• 1 pinch(s) of aromatics
• pepper
• nutmeg
• 1 medium onion(s), lightly roasted, finely chopped
• 3 eggs
• 1 bunch parsley or chives, chopped
• 2 leaves of lovage, finely chopped
• 1 tbsp flour
• possibly bacon (belly bacon)
• possibly sausages (Landjäger)
• possibly cheese
• possibly mushrooms
• possibly nuts

Instructions

Working time approx. 20 minutes; Rest time approx. 1 hour; Total time approx. 1 hour 20 minutes

taste particularly fine

Pour hot, nut-brown butter over the diced rolls or ready-made dumpling bread and mix lightly. Let stand for 10 minutes. Combine the warmed milk with the eggs, spices, and roasted onion and pour over the bread. Mix well, then stir in the parsley, lovage, and flour. It should become a smooth, soft mixture (but not as soft as the liver dumplings). Cover and let stand for at least 30 minutes. Form dumplings with wet hands, pressing firmly and rolling them into nice rounds. Now fill a hole in the pan already suspended over steam with the dumplings (they shouldn’t touch each other—they’ll rise nicely) and steam the dumplings for about 20 minutes. Then check with a larding needle whether the dumpling is cooked through. To do this, pierce the needle towards the center and immediately hold it to your lip; it should feel hot. If the dumplings are being cooked in water, bring the water to a boil, add plenty of salt, add the dumplings, and cook gently for 20 minutes. Do not boil until bubbling! If desired, add 1 tbsp of strong flour to the dumpling mixture. A good dumpling will rise straight up and when it’s ready will keep spinning in the water. This mixture can be expanded as desired – if I add 100g of belly bacon and 1 Landjäger sausage, finely diced and fried in fat, I get really good Tyrolean bacon dumplings. If I add 200g (of three different types of cheese, from spicy to mild), I get wonderful cheese dumplings. If I add 150g of finely chopped mushrooms or chanterelles and a bit of garlic, the result is wonderful mushroom dumplings. These go well with braised roast or game. If I add 150 g of finely chopped nuts (roasted without fat), this makes fine nut dumplings, which also go well with game and pot roast.