Spätzli

Today I was lucky enough to find something I have been trying to get for quite a while. One of my favorite local dish (although, known throughout most German speaking countries and some neighboring countries in addition) is spätzli. It is some mixture between egg-noodles and dumplings, with different recipes citing variable quantities of ingredients.

The spätzli are prepared by pushing the dough through a device above a pot with cooking salted water, and waiting about three minutes until the spätzli rises to the surface to be drained and served, or set aside for futher processing. The problem is that, with currently most people buying pre-made spätzli in supermarkets, these spätzli-presses are hard to come by. While actually unsuccessfully looking for either gardening- or cooking books in the local thrift shop this morning I passed by the kitchen section and noticed a standard, no-nonsense spätzli-press on offer for next to nothing. Less then two hours later it was being applied in my kitchen:

The recipe I used to prepare the dough:

• 500 gram plain flour (1.1 lb)
• 250 ml water (8.5 oz.)
• 1 tablespoon of salt
• 1-4 eggs (I used two)
• 30 gram (1 ounce) butter

Mixing it all together I got a rather sticky and though dough, adding the one or two additional eggs should make it less sticky and more fluid. After bringing a pot of salted water to a boil, I pressed the dough through the press in small portions, waiting until they were finished before starting the next portion.

I decided to make our meal a bit more fancy by dicing a small onion and fruiting it, adding in two handfuls of smoked bacon cubes, and gently frying until they start to be brown. The spätzli were added for the last three minutes.

I shamefully have to admit I lacked the patience to make a photo before lunch-time, but here is the lunch box I'll take in to work on Monday: