Middle European pasta: Spaetzle (or spatzl or spatzen)

I love starch. There's no doubt about it. Potatoes, pasta, rice, bread, crackers. Yes, please. Now that Annalena has started training with a woman affectionately referred to as "the tiny beast," the "ad libitum" consumption of carbs and starches has had to have been curtailed. This is not necessarily a bad thing, as Annalena is beginning to realize "OH MY GOD. I have muscles." But since the total amount of these lovely ingredients has had to be cut back, I've gone afield to start trying new or neglected ones.
Leading to: spaetzle. If you don't know these, shame on you. How best to describe them? Well, I saw a piece calling them "German egg dumplings," which really doesn't do a good job. When I think of dumplings, I think of larger, heavier units, sort of like Chinese pot stickers. Spaetzle ain't that. To me, they are sort of like a larger, irregular pasta. Now , what's wrong with that?
I have made them before, with varying success. I always felt that I was "missing something" when I made them. They were heavy, or too "solid." I once watched an Austrian chef make them on television: one of these guys who , if you saw him, you would KNOW he was a chef. He said that the key to good spaetzle was BEATING the dough - HARD. And he did. There were more than 40 lashes administered to that bowl when he was done. I tried that. I think the spaetzle retaliated . And I put them to the side.
Then, opportunity knocked. My friend Rob is making us dinner this weekend. It's Hungarian in theme, and he asked me to make spaetzle (and to be totally fair, he said we would have rice as a fallback if the spaetzle didn't work).
Those who know me well know that this is a challenge that yours truly cannot pass up. So I started my research. And I learned some rather interesting things. First, every recipe for spaetzle that I found, had way more liquid in it than the one I was using. Also, just about all of them had departed from the classic combination of flour/eggs/liquid/salt, and added an ingredient that brought some moisture to it. I saw them with peas, with butternut squash puree, and finally, the one I settled on: fresh herbs. Lots of them. And when I made them, as a trial run last night, they were GOOD. The recipe allegedly makes four, very large side dish portions. Well, there were three of us, and there ain't no more left. So, this weekend, when I go to Rob's and make these guys, we may just double the recipe.

here we go. You start with a heaping 2 cups of flour. The original recipe called for 2.25 cups, but I find that if I just heap up the two cups, I get the right amount. You add to that a sprinkle of salt, 3/4 cup of whole milk, and three eggs (I'm gonna come back to the milk quantity later). Stir this all together. You're going to get a very thick dough that is resistant to being whisked. You really need a spoon, and you DO need to get some elbow grease into this. Now, get a big bunch of herbs. For me, it was dill and parsley, and chop them very fine. VERY fine. You'll want a good third of a cup or so of them, and then stir that into the dough.

You now need a pot of boiling liquid. The choices that I've seen are water, and stock. I had one more quart of "cockstock" left, and I'm getting a rooster today for making more, so I dumped that into a pot, together with a quart of water, to dilute it. You can buy a toy called a spatzle maker. basically, it's a tear shaped grater, with a sliding box on it. It fits over the pot. You put the dough into the box, and slide it back and forth, as small bits of dough fall into the boiling liquid.

And you WILL sweat during this. You may want a change of clothes ready because this dough is fairly resistant. But you WILL prevail, and the dumplings will fall into the liquid and cook up in about two minutes. They come to the top of the liquid when they're done. Scoop em out and keep going until you use up all the dough.

Now, what if you don' thave a spatzle maker, like a normal person? Then what I would suggest is that you add a bit more milk to the dough (in fact, I may do that anyway, so that I can save some elbow grease), and then rub the dough over the larger holes of a three sided grater. My sister in law Crystel (who is from Swabia), tells me that she makes her dough VERY wet, and then just dribbles it into the liquid with a fork. Crystel KNOWs what she's doing, and I will defer to t his.

You can dress these guys when they're done, with butter, or gravy, or put them into some of the stock you've cooked them in, if you used stock. They keep for a few hours, and what I did was to just toss a few spoons of the stock in them, to keep em moist. That was all we did.

They went alongside a roast chicken. Crystel tells me that there are rules for when you can and cannot serve spatzle , but they are changing.

I am sure that if you have left over ones, they would be great, pan fried until they are crispy. And... with my evil mind working the way it is, I am thinking: beet puree. Golden beet puree. And I have just the friend to make these with: David, get over here!!!!

So, I wanna shout out a few people on this one. Rob, who sent me on the search that led to this success. Wait till tomorrow, boss. It's gonna be great. Crystel, you old spatzlemacherin, Rene, the rediscovered Austrian flash, who will probably tell me how to do this better, and David, dear David, who will come up with some more great ideas, well beyond the beet variation, and we'll do them. I can see all kinds of possibilities in the future.

Give it a try. What could a new starch hurt?