Interesting to see where the zeros show up on the distance matrix (aside from the diagonal). The similarity between manti and shumai (siomay in the article) was quite a surprise:
But that's also where I noticed both guotie and wonton were on the list, although guotie is basically a generic term for "potsticker." It's usually a fried jiaozi although sometimes a fried wonton is also called a guotie.
Traditionally Guotie is different from Jiaozi, it is a long roll with both side open, often with the same ingredients as jiaozi (cabbage with pork or mutton), but nowadays people are lazy and made guotie using jiaozi. You still be able to find traditional guotie in Taipei, but sadly seldom in China.
It is quite a comprehensive list. But for Chinese varieties, it missed Har Gow (Pronounced as Ha Gau in Cantonese or Xia Jiao in Mandarin) - Shrimp and bamboo shoots with wrapper made from Wheat starch), it is key Dim Sum dish from Cantonese cuisine, it looks like Jiaozi but different in both how the wrapper is made and the ingredients. Jiaozi is available only in North China, but Har Gow is only available in Cantonese cuisine. If you want to know if a Cantonese restaurant is good or bad, taste and inspect their Har Gow.
> However, in the case of German Knödel and Czech knedlík, I decided to include both simply based on the fact that whereas the former was listed as potentially being served with a sweet filling, I did not observe this with the latter.
There are absolutely sweet Czech dumplings. Many kinds, usually with some sort of stone fruit (cherries, whole apricots, peaches, etc) but any kind of berry will do. They are also boiled, but they tend to have a different thinner dough that is farmer's/curd cheese and flour based, rather than being bready. They take a lot of practice to make well. If you're using smaller fruits like cherries or blueberries, they're near impossible to form without the trained hands of a Czech grandma.
Apricot ones are my favorite. You slice them in half, take out the pit, and dress them with grated/crumbled farmer's cheese, melted butter, and sugar.
In the US, you have to make do with what you can get... and "farmer's cheese" differs a lot throughout the US. In many places, it's pretty close to quark (when crumbled and with a little hydration added, at least).
The only big difference in preparation in many parts of the US (especially those with Eastern or Central European heritage) is how long it's pressed. It's otherwise the same thing: acid-curdled dairy with most of the moisture removed. A little Wondra or 00 flour helps if it won't take the right consistency.
As for the pit, it'd be fine either way. It's a bit easier to form with the pit in, and won't hurt the flavor at all, but removing it would be just fine too.
Yep, in Polish it's "twaróg" and as far as I can tell it doesn't exist in the Anglosphere, the closest word to it is "quark" but for instance British quark has absolutely nothing to do with Twaróg. In Polish it's also called "Biały ser"(white cheese) even though it has nothing to do with cheese.
And yes, you'd need to be some kind of a monster to leave the pit in the fruit used for dumplings.
Since this is getting a few votes, I might as well ask the question that led me to this page: How do Belorussian Kalduny differ from Polish Pierogi, Ukranian Vareniki, and Russian Pelmeni?
The most important difference between pelmeni, varenyky, and pierogi is the thickness of the dough shell—in pelmeni and vareniki this is as thin as possible, and the proportion of filling to dough is usually higher. Pelmeni are never served with a sweet filling, which distinguishes them from vareniki and Polish pierogi, which sometimes are. Also, the fillings in pelmeni are usually raw, while the fillings of vareniki and pierogi are typically precooked.
Those distinctions seem about right in my experience, and I eat all three fairly often, since I go to a lot of cultural festivals.
This seems like an accurate description. Unfortunately, these three are the ones I'm more familiar with, and I was hoping to understand how Kalduny compare to these. The Wikipedia article for them (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kalduny) basically says they are similar, but doesn't really get into the differences.
In Lithuania the word for 'Pelmeni' is 'Koldunai', and as Russian language is still going strong in Belarus, Pelmeni is widely used, although I don't know if it's prevalent over 'Kalduny'. Not sure were the word originated. In Russia 'Vareniki' is basically the broad term for the non-meat dumplings (with potato/quark/cherry/mushroom stuffing).
It seems that there are dough kalduny but when I'd been to Belarus I never seen those and people just called dough dumplings either "pelmeni" (with meat) or "varenniki" with other fillings. Kalduny were potato shells with meat filling (similar to Irish boxty).
The article on knödel on wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knödel is a hot mess. I was curious to see a distinction between knedlik and knodel so I looked at this and, aside from its over-reliance on German terminology, it seems to contradict itself internally. I grew up with English terms for the dumplings that I ate, which were primarily plum dumplings (very rarely with other fruit) and bread dumplings. In my limited experience, knödel is just the German word for what Czechs call knedlik, but I just eat them, I'm not an authority.
In German, Knödel can be both a generic term for some class of dumplings or mean something more specific. There are regional differences and a lot of context.
Lots of dumplings also have multiple names in different regions.
As a Chinese, we don't categorised Bao as Jiao (dumplings), they are different both in shape and wrapper, and cooking (Bao is steam and never boiled with water).
Kingdom of Dumplings (retail shop a few blocks from its restaurant - call restaurant and ask them) is great. It’s like ~$7-10 for a bag (I believe). They also have scallion pancakes frozen. I last went at the beginning of shelter-in-place
Fun article indeed but the data the author has collected, however, is sloppy. Being Turkish, I needed to verify "mantı" on the binary coded features table I and saw, to my dismay, that only the "steamed" is marked "1" among the cooking options, which is wrong even if you consider all variations. Even the wikipedia page correctly states that it is usually boiled or baked.
I noticed there's a Lithuanian "Cepelinai" mentioned there. "Cepelinai" aren't dumplings in a traditional sense, mainly because there's no flour used for the outer shell - only potatoes.
Would be nice if the properties would be ordered by diversity (most homogeneous leftmost, most diverse right), and then the whole list ordered by binary values O:)
TFA has gnocchi and matzo balls, so I think spätzle ought to be admissible as 0-dumplings (where a filled dumpling is a 1-dumpling). Proper dumplings would then be those dumplings with at least one layer of filling. Are there any 2-dumplings or higher, the dumpling equivalent of turducken?
(future work: classification of dumplings with handles, immersions of Klein Dumplings in cooking oil, ...)
Yes, dumplings don't need a fillings. But Spätzle are usually too thin to be called dumplings in my understanding. I'd call them a kind of noodle or pasta.
I think this is great because it invites discussion. As an Italian, I'd like to point out that tortellini can be fried, shallow, in a skillet, and tossed with hearty greens.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manti_(food)#/media/File:Ouzb%...
vs.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shumai#/media/File:%E7%83%A7%E...
But that's also where I noticed both guotie and wonton were on the list, although guotie is basically a generic term for "potsticker." It's usually a fried jiaozi although sometimes a fried wonton is also called a guotie.