|
 I never expected so much interest for Spaetzle!
For those of you who don't know what they are: they're a rough & ready short pasta, squiggly teardrop shaped, about 2 cm in length, and are served instead of potatoes as a side dish. A lot easier to make than regular pasta. There are hundreds of variations to make them more interesting. You can also add herbs to the batter and put them in soups as mini dumplings or make a casserole with them. Here's the basic recipe from my New German Cookbook, do google for spaetzle to find more recipes and ideas.
Spaetzle
(4 servings)
Ingredients:
1 cup plus 2 tablespoons sifted all-purpose flour
1/8 teaspoon (freshly grated) nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 large egg
6 tablespoons milk
Bring a big pan of well salted water to a rapid boil.
Combine all the dry ingredients in a bowl, mix, and make a well in the center.
In a seperate cup or bowl, whisk the egg with the milk together and then pour into the well of dry ingredients. Now get your wooden spoon out and prepare to give it some welly. Mix everything together until you get a bubbly, elastic batter. A food processor will make a good job of this too.
Now get out your spaetzle maker and push the batter through the holes straight into the pan with boiling water. If you don't have a spaetzle maker, you can use a potato ricer or put a teacloth in a plastic bag and get out a colander. Put the batter in the colander and push the batter through the holes using the teacloth in the bag.
Cook for about 8 minutes without the lid on, stirring from time to time to prevent the spaetzle from sticking. When the spaetzle rise to the surface they are ready. Take them out with a slotted spoon and drain them. Serve immediately. Or, drop them in some ice water to stop them cooking and when ready to serve just reheat them for 4 minutes in some melted butter (plus some herbs, sage works well).
|