I always had chicken paprikash with dumplings and she made them from a batter of eggs, flour, salt and water, sometimes adding a little onion powder. She mixed the batter with a wooden spoon and then would use a butter knife to ladle the batter off the spoon into a large pot of boiling water.
I tried replicating this recipe and technique in later years after she had passed, and utterly failed to get the dumplings to come out the way she did. Always something was off- either the size, consistency and texture, softness, or how well it actually held together.