spaetzle

Ingredients for 6 servings:

• 500 g flour
• 6 eggs
• 200 ml milk
• 20 g butter, melted
• Salt

Instructions

Working time approx. 30 minutes; Cooking/baking time approx. 15 minutes; Total time approx. 45 minutes

Knöpfli or Spätzle – homemade, always a success

Place the flour in a large bowl and make a well in the center. Add the eggs, milk, salt, and melted, cooled butter. Mix everything together to form a tough, sticky dough. This can be done with a wooden spoon (if you have enough muscle power) or with the dough hook on a mixer. Let the dough rest for 5-10 minutes. Bring a large pot of water to a boil and add salt. If you’re handy, you can now scrape the spaetzle off the board. I use a spaetzle maker – you put it on the table and use a scraper to press the dough through holes in the water. This creates the small, spherical dumplings. This also works great with a spaetzle scoop – but don’t overfill it, or the dough will overflow. This creates long, thin spaetzle. You can also shape the dough into dumplings using two tablespoons and cook them as flour dumplings. When the spaetzle are cooked, they will rise to the surface and can be skimmed off. With this amount, you have to do this every now and then, otherwise the batter will fall onto the finished spaetzle in the pot and stick to them. It goes great with dishes that make a nice sauce that you can pour over the spaetzle. Another classic dish is cheese spaetzle with fried onions and melted strong cheese. Tip: The batter is very sticky, so it’s best to rinse everything off immediately with cold water. In hot water, the batter sticks even more and is difficult to remove. If you’re doing the dishes later, you should soak everything. Suitable as a side dish for 6 people or as a main course for 4 people.