Does anyone make Spaetzle?

I have never made my own, and BUYING the stuff is tricky.

My neighbor has a rotary thing that sits on the pot of boiling water and squeezes the dough through holes in a controlled fashion.

Amazon has quite a variety of spaetzle makers, none of which looks like my neighbor's.

I have a good potato ricer with various hole sizes and I should probably try that.

I am frustrated because I bought some wonderful "thin" Spaetzle for the Hungarian meal (to go with goulash) and then went back to the same store to buy more and nobody knew what I was talking about. I have bought the Maggi stuff from Amazon and paid ridiculous shipping prices.

If you ever cook Swiss, German, or Austrian, you will understand why one needs Spaetzle...

So -- how do you make it??

[Robin Garr]

I realize this is not a helpful answer, Frank, but I enjoy spaetzle and usually have some whenever I go to a German restaurant. It's one of those things that I think of in connection with an ethnic eatery and probably would never try to make at home.

It was requested for an after T-day dinner. Every year I do T-day for my wife's family. since her sister and her wife have to fly in they stay the weekend. A couple of years ago I asked them what they wanted for Saturday dinner. Tina, Sandra's wife, always comes up with something I have never made. This year it was Spaetzle. I looked on the web and settled on one from the food network. I just spread it out on a cutting board, let it rest and then cut thin slices and dropped them into a boiling liquid of water and chicken stock. The chicken stock was my idea. They were a hit. I want to make them again and make a larger quantity. I would love to something with them in a frying pan for breakfast.

I just had some more -- goulash leftovers. And I was trying to think how to explain these noodles to someone who only knows spaghetti.

Italian pasta has a kind of gentle silky texture. Spaetzle is a bit lumpy and chewy. Italian pasta generally has a smooth slippery surface (I do know that there are some "artisanal" pastas which are deliberately finished rough). Spaetzle has an uneven surface which is sometimes kind of rough. It makes it interesting to the tongue and it keeps contact with the sauce better. Spaetzle also tends to have an interesting eggy flavor.

One of the main shapes for Spaetzle -- hmm, how to describe it. An inch or two long, irregular width as much as 1/4 inch wide.
OK, "spoiler" -- highlight if you want to read
boogers.

end "spoiler."

What I just bought looks a lot like spaghetti except it is in long curly extruded shapes instead of straight lines. "Dünn Spätzle"

Normally there would be a pile of spaetzle between the sauerkraut and the Wienerschnitzel. But it's good in many contexts, especially with a bit of butter on top. Or with sauce, as I used it with the Goulasch.

And it would probably be great with breakfast.

Haven't made spaetzle in a loooong time but they are very very good. I have included the recipe I have used in the past. But I also suggest you search youtube for spaetzle. there are lots of clips over there, unfortunately I can't direct you to a good one as I have limited capacity at the moment and can;t view video clips easily.

Spaetzle 1

6 eggs
350 ml water or milk
5 g salt
3 g nutmeg
3 g white pepper
450 g flour
butter for service

1. 1. Beat eggs and add liquid, salt, nutmeg and pepper.2. Add flour and beat until smooth and thick, may add flour. 3. Let the batter stand for 1 hour to relax the gluten. 4. Set a colander or Spaetzle machine over a large pot of boiling salted water. 5. Place the batter in the colander and force through the holes. 6. After they float to the surface let them simmer a minute or two then remove and cool quickly in cold water then drain well. 7. Cover and refrigerate until service. 8. Saute portions to order in butter and serve immediately. serves 15 portion size 110 g

Servings: 15

Nutrition Facts
Serving size: 1/15 of a recipe (2.6 ounces).
Percent daily values based on the Reference Daily Intake (RDI) for a 2000 calorie diet.
Nutrition information calculated from recipe ingredients. One of the recipe's ingredients was not linked. This ingredient is not included in the recipe nutrition data.

Amount Per Serving
Calories 139.44
Calories From Fat (15%) 20.23
% Daily Value
Total Fat 2.27g 3%
Saturated Fat 0.72g 4%
Cholesterol 74.4mg 25%
Sodium 158.94mg 7%
Potassium 60.81mg 2%
Total Carbohydrates 23.27g 8%
Fiber 0.9g 4%
Sugar 0.21g
Protein 5.64g 11%

Source
Author: ref: Gisslen

Wow, Barb, that is spaetzle for a crowd -- an entire pound of flour!! It's like a pound cake recipe.

Thank you, looks delicious. And easy enough to cut down.

I am more concerned just now with the physical production of the stuff. I will have to try out a recipe and use my ricer with the largest holes.

If it were easier to buy the dried stuff I would just do that. But there ARE several choices on Amazon.com. You just need to buy a case of 12 to keep the shipping more reasonable.

BTW for people who make their own pasta -- have you ever made Tajarin? This is the Piemontese version of Tagliarini, cut noodles. In the Piedmont they like to show off and I have actually seen recipes with THIRTY SIX EGG YOLKS to some reasonable amount of flour. Wow.

When we were in Rome we ordered creme brulee -- and what came was a deep rich yellow, obviously very full of egg yolks. Sometimes, more egg yolks is not a good thing. When we were in Toledo, Spain, we bought candy that consisted entirely of egg yolks preserved with sugar. I have forgotten the name but they were a local specialty. They tasted OK but with my high cholesterol, I don't need it...

I have used a cheese grater with some success.

[Jenise]

Frank, I just *love* spaetzle. And I've made it a couple times, and in fact have a device for making it that is liked by others but I've not managed to either make it work well or make the exact right dough for that one device such that I truly added that skill to my repertoire. Always meant to rectify this. That I haven't is also why I am unclear about whether I still have the thing or if in one of my moves I lost half of it--talking about it produces this vague memory of holding up one part and wondering where the other part was. I bought mine a long time ago but know it's still made, I saw the exact thing at a Seattle kitchen store last week. It's very untechnical looking. The bottom part looks a lot like a cheese grater with large holes--it's rectangular with handles at each end--and has a small squarish hopper on top for the dough. Your dough has to be loose enough to be gravitationally inclined to drop through the holes such that every pass of the hopper allows at least one-inch lengths or so to drop into the pot, but not so loose that it flows or so elastic that it sticks or springs back and bunches up.

One thing I have realized though is that recipes differ greatly and some of the doughs are really more of a batter consistency than a dough you could cut, like George describes doing. I saw one Austrian chef once put his fairly wet dough on a board that looked like a painter's palette and scrape the dough off with a knife blade directly into the boiling water, a technique just about no one would easily take to unless one had been doing that all their life.

Jenise, FWIW that is what most of the Spaetzle makers on Amazon look like -- and I could buy one for about $8 there.

I do like the idea of having some way to PROPEL the dough, though.

The highest rated one looks a lot like my potato ricer but costs $45...

Easy, nothing to it!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Y6Ga9hM ... re=related

Easy, nothing to it!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Y6Ga9hM ... re=related

Bob, that is priceless. She's such a schwäbisch Bauersfrau.

Grown-up Hochdeutsch for "look at this" is "schau dies an" (anschauen).

Children's German, and country German, is "Guck mal" -- she is saying "Gukke dies mal" again and again.

And her knife technique is amazing, she is slightly cooking the dough on the far end of the board, and then using these lightning fast strokes to make these finely cut noodles. It really reminds me of Martin Yan doing something incredible with his knife (like slicing and seeding a pepper in one deft stroke) and then saying "IT'S EEEEASY!!"