Would you like to taste with me the Dumplings in broth or dry with cheese and dandelion, very soft, in two versions, mountain first courses.

Oh yes, because today I am talking about the mountains, my beloved mountains, and in particular a refuge.

Do you know the Crucolo refuge? It is located on the “peak” (in dialect crucolo) of the mountain, in the heart of Val Campelle halfway between the Valsugana and the Lagorai mountain range.

If you are in the Valsugana area, take a walk, it’s worth it!!!

And there, since the early 1800s, the Purin family produces besides Parampampoli (a liqueur to be drunk hot), the crucolo cheese. A crucolo cheese that tastes of mountain pastures. Every now and then a gigantic form of Crucolo also arrives here in Veneto. I bought a piece of a giant form specifically to prepare a typical dish from Trentino: The cheese dumplings.

This month I am participating with the Italian Food Blogger Association in the Gran Tour of Italy which is currently visiting Trentino Alto Adige, so what better than to prepare a vegetarian alternative to the more classic speck dumplings.

I love the mountains, I often go skiing in Trentino, the best years were spent between snow and ski mountaineering. At lunch sometimes in the refuges I manage to find cheese dumplings that I alternate with strangolapreti.

Would you rather know the history or the legend of these bread dumplings called canederli or knödel?

Here is the story: In the chapel of the Hocheppan Castle near Bolzano there are frescoes. In one fresco you can see a woman beside Saint Mary checking a pot with five dumplings and with her right hand tasting one. She is the Knödelesserin, the dumpling eater.

Do you want to know the legend of the dumplings instead?

It is said that many years ago, a group of Landsknechts arrived at a South Tyrolean farm. They would have plundered and burned everything if they had not been given food immediately. The landlady with her daughters, scared, did not lose heart, and gathered on the table everything that was edible in the house. They found stale bread, onions, eggs, milk, a little flour, and speck. They cut the bread into pieces, added some herbs found in the fields, mixed it with eggs and milk adding some salt. They formed balls and threw them to cook in boiling water. They brought the Landsknechts bowls with these large round dumplings. Full and satisfied, the troops fell deeply asleep and upon awakening the commander paid the woman with gold coins saying “These cannonballs would lay even the angriest man” and took his leave with his men.

The truth is very simple, the dumpling is a poor dish, made with leftovers, in the Ladin valleys the dumplings are called Balotes. It was more common to find them with turnips than with meat.

They are not difficult to make, the secret is to have stale bread. The dough should not be too soft otherwise they risk falling apart while cooking in broth. However, they should not be too firm, otherwise they are not true dumplings. A real dumpling should be divided only with a fork, never use a knife, otherwise, the cook gets offended.

To the stale bread and crucolo cheese, I added dandelion, nothing better than a walk among the meadows at the weekend to collect the first ones that sprout. Do you know what we call dandelion here in Veneto? Pissacan, a very colorful expression that well describes the diuretic property of dandelions. My friend Marianna from Padua calls them sbrusa oci.

Dumplings in broth and dry with cheese and dandelion. Yes, I made them in two versions because at home some wanted them dry, some wanted them in broth, in the end, both versions turned out great.
Typical recipe #iononspreco, where both stale bread and any green herbs in the refrigerator are recycled.

And which do you prefer?

Below I link other mountain recipes, maybe you’ll want to try them or have a themed evening with your friends.