It really isn't a million miles from British stew and dumplings. Do you perhaps not cook very much?
British stew, as made in my family, anyway = meat, probably most often beef or lamb, but could be chicken; onions and other vegetables; a little flour; bayleaf and sometimes other herbs; stock; salt and pepper; some fat to brown the meat and soften the vegetables. Beef in ale is very similar but with all or part of the stock replaced by ale. In that case mustard is an excellent addition. A dash of Lea & Perrin's is good.
The stew I've linked to is really not that different except that there's a lot of tomato in it, some garlic and chilli flakes.
Dumplings: flour, fat, water, seasoning, herbs, possibly cheese. This is what is in the recipe you've just said looks delicious, and this is what's in British dumplings to be cooked in stew. In both cases the dumplings are not 'big white blobs of floury fat balls' floating atop a watery stew. They absorb liquid from the stew and make the stew thicker. Just like other things made from fat and flour, e.g. pastry, they cook and you don't taste the flour in the finished product.