British And Irish Cuisine

Savoury dumplings made from balls of dough are part of traditional British and Irish cuisine. Dumplings are made from twice the weight of self raising flour to suet, bound together by cold water to form a dough and seasoned with salt and pepper. Balls of this dough are dropped into a bubbling pot of stew or soup, or into a casserole. They sit, partly submerged in the stew, and expand as they are half-boiled half-steamed for ten minutes or so. The cooked dumplings are airy on the inside and moist on the outside. The dough may be flavoured with herbs, or it may have cheese pressed into its centre. The Norfolk dumpling is not made with fat, but from flour and a raising agent. Cotswold dumplings call for the addition of breadcrumbs and cheese, and the balls of dough may be rolled in breadcrumbs and fried, rather than cooked in a soup or stew.
These sour-dough dumplings, when sweetened and made with dried fruit and spices, can be boiled in water to make a dessert. In Scotland, this is called a clootie dumpling, after the cloth. In Dorset, dumplings are often called doughboys, perhaps in reference to the buoys that are used to mark lobster pots around the coast locally.
Italian cuisine
Ravioli and tortellini fit the basic definition of a dumpling: these are pockets of pasta enclosing various fillings (cheese, mushrooms, spinach, seafood, or meat). Instead of being made from a ball of dough, the dough is rolled flat, cut into a shape, filled with other ingredients, and then the dough is closed around the filling. Gnocchi (Spanish: ñoquis, widely adopted in Argentina, Portuguese: nhoque, Slovene: Njoki) is a different kind of Italian dumpling. The word gnocchi literally means "lumps", and they are rolled and shaped from a mixture of egg with potato, semolina, flour, or ricotta cheese (with or without spinach). The lumps are boiled in water and served with melted butter, grated cheese, or other pasta sauces.
Scandinavian cuisine
In Norway, dumplings have a vast variety of names, as the dialects differ substantially. Names include potetball, klubb, kløbb, raspeball, komle, kumle, kompe, kumpe, kodla, kudle, klot, kams, ball, baill, komperdøse, kumperdøse, kompadøs, ruter, ruta, raskekako, risk, klotremat, krumme and kromme. They are usually made from potatoes and various types of flour, and then boiled. Occasionally they contain pork meat, such as bacon, in the middle. In some areas it is common to serve the dumplings with syrup.
In Sweden, potato dumplings mainly have two names. In the northern parts they are usually called Palt, or Pitepalt, and are filled with salted pork and eaten with melted butter and lingonberry jam. In southern Sweden, and Öland, the potato dumpling is called Kroppkaka, and is usually filled with smoked pork, raw onions and coarsely ground pepper, usually served with cream and lingonberry jam. On Öland, the south-eastern coast and in the north the dumplings are made mainly from raw potatoes, whereas in the southern mainland boiled potatoes are mainly in use. Flour dumplings for use in soup are called Klimp.