Spätzle

A long time ago I advised you to make a venison goulash and to serve it over spätzle. But I didn't tell you how to make the latter. It's time to set things right.

Spätzle are a sort of handmade noodle. They are a staple of the Swabians, who make them in an infinite variety and do just about anything with them. They're vastly better than machine-made, store-bought noodles. The name, incidentally, is a giveaway of their origin; that -le is the omnipresent Swabian diminutive, cognate with the Bavarian -l, the Schwyzerdüutsch -li and the vastly more pretentious standard German -lein. Spätzle means 'little sparrow', though I do not know why. (Actually, maybe I do; Spatz can be a slang term for what is technically known as a tallywhacker.)

Mixing up the dough and cooking it is simplicity itself. The hard part is the technique of forming the noodles, but fortunately you can cheat, and I will tell you how.

This recipe will make enough for a big serving for four or a modest serving for eight. The ingredients are near-infinitely scalable if you want to make more, or less. Here's what you need:

500g ordinary white flour*

5-6 fresh eggs

A big pinch of salt

Up to about 250ml water (hint: use fizzy mineral water)

* If you are in southern Germany, you might be able to find specially-milled spätzle flour. If you can get some, hooray; but if you can't, don't worry about it. I've used both, and the difference is slight if any.

Put a very large pot of water on to boil.

Mix the salt into the flour in a large bowl. Crack in the eggs and mix it all up as best you can.

Start adding the water, a bit at a time. Don't worry if the dough is not perfectly smooth. If you're mixing it by hand (as you should), it won't be. You should see little bubbles work their way up to freedom. You might not need all the water; you want a dough that is as thick as it can be, consistent with what we are going to do to it next. 

Now, what are we going to do next? Well, if you are an authentic Swabian grandmother, you are going to put some of the dough onto a wet wooden board and then rapidly shave bits of it into the boiling water. As you are probably not a Swabian grandmother, though (the ability to shave spätzle seems to be genetically determined), you may use a mechanical assistant.

But you have to use the right kind, and this thing is the wrong kind. It's called a Kartoffelpresse ('potato press'), and apparently Americans (or at least, upper midwestern atheist American scientists) call it a 'ricer'. You may legitimately use it to mash potatoes (though there is no real need to), and it's handy if you are making dumplings from cooked potatoes. But please, do not use it for spätzle.

Here is what you want to use instead. It's called a Spätzlehobel. The flat part is punctured, with small dull blades that shape the noodles. The boxy bit holds the dough; you slide it rapidly back and forth, resting the apparatus atop the pot of boiling water. If your kitchen-implements connection is really well stocked, be careful to choose a 'hobel that makes the longer sort of spätzle. The other kind makes short knobby spätzle. There's nothing wrong with that, they're just less authentically Swabian (you're likelier to find the knobby sort among the Swabians' Alemannic cousins in southeastern southwestern [Doh!] Bavaria and Austria's far west.)

Whether you're shaving the spätzle, using the 'hobel or (God forgive you) putting them through the press, you will need to do it in batches. Each batch is ready when the spätzle float at the top of the pot. Stay alert; this doesn't take much time at all.

As each batch swims to the top, remove it using any appropriate tool. Some people use those big spoons with lots of holes in the bowl; I prefer one of those wire-mesh scoopers that often comes in the box when you buy a wok.

What you do with the cooked spätzle now depends on how you want to serve them. Let's assume for the moment that you simply want to serve them on the side of something else (or under that venison goulash). Well, then dump each batch into a bowl of cold water. When you've used up all the dough, drain the spätzle well and warm them through in a pan of melted butter. If you want to get all ambitious and authentic, you can then toast some breadcrumbs in the hot butter and sprinkle them atop the spätzle in their serving-dish.

But there's more, so much more, that you can do with spätzle. In Swabia, you'll find them made with dough incorporating spinach or tomato or chopped liver, and prepared in all sorts of ways. Let's walk before we run, though, with this simple example that goes well on a cold winter's night: Kässpätzle.

Pre-heat your oven to 200 C. Put an earthenware bowl or casserole or lasagne pan or what have you inside. When you put the pot on to boil, you should also melt a good bit of butter in a pan and then load the pan with thinly-sliced rings of onion. Leave them to brown over gentle heat while you're doing all the rest. Grate a good bit of cheese into a bowl. You want something sharp-flavoured and Alpine; Gruyère or Appenzeller, perhaps, or a mix of the two. Now start making spätzle as described above.

As each batch comes out of the pot, put it into the serving dish (it's in the oven, you'll recall). Sprinkle some of the grated cheese atop it. Repeat till done with the dough. Layer the last of the cheese on top of the spätzle, and return to the oven to let everything melt through. Then take it out and put the (by now nicely caramelised) onions on top.

Kässpätzle is a cardiologist's nightmare all right, but it will warm you to the core and make you feel at peace with the world. If you're eating this sort of thing, you're obviously not paranoid about your diet, so go ahead and have a Schnapps afterward, the traditional follow-up to any cheese-laden Alpine meal. I'd recommend a Schladerer Kirschwasser. As the nights grow colder, I shall have to tell you how to make a dish that makes Kässpätzle look light and heart-friendly: Aelblermagronen.