Adventures in spaeztle

Though I have visited both Germany and Austria, I have never eaten spaeztle.  I traveled a lot in college while studying abroad but was constantly broke, so I guess indulging in culinary delights wasn’t at the top of my list like it would be now.

So Smitten Kitchen just posted a recipe and technique for making spaeztle, and my Germanophile sister requested that we try it out for Sunday Family Dinner.  We decided to serve it with kielbasa, sauerkraut, onions, and peppers, which may or may not be traditional, but it totally worked.  We followed the recipe and even let the batter rest for an hour before cooking, but the spaetzle didn’t come out in twirly pieces like I expected. It was a little more like the consistency of scrambled eggs when we first cooked it. We tried pushing the batter through a colander like Deb suggested but got better results pushing it though my wire skimmer (which is now still soaking in a bowl of  water in the sink because it was so battery and difficult to clean afterward).  We also tried browning all of it in the same non-stick pot we cooked it in, but it clearly wasn’t working, so we took most of it out and browned the rest in my cast iron skillet.  So we dirtied another pan, but it browned up REAL nice and quick.

Here is a photo of the work in progress and then the fruits of our labor:

In conclusion, you should make spaetzle.  I’m excited to order it the next time I have the opportunity so I can see if we came anywhere near close with this experiment.

In other areas of life, you should know that NPR is streaming all of Paul Simon’s new album on its site.  I’m about 5 songs in, and it’s very Paul Simony, which I consider to be a good thing.  Bouncy, weird noises in the background.  Fun.

Also, I picked up some “dazzling” white Corelle dishes for the old kitchen so we don’t always have to use the nicer place setting dishes when we’re just eating a slice o’ pizza or, in my case, dozens of pickles.  They have an outlet store in the Jersey Gardens mall, so they were 40% off!  I’ve been on the lookout for something  more casual, but all I could ever find at places like Target is melamine, which is supposedly not dishwasher or microwave safe (though I know for a fact that the dishes at my mom’s house that we’ve eaten off of for 20 years are melamine, and we microwave them all the time — keep this in mind when I contract some sort of terrible disease later on).  The Corelle seem to be best for this.  They come in lots of designs, but I’m now convinced that food looks most appetizing on a plain, white plate.

We’re off to Louisville on Thursday night for a wedding.  Hopefully I take pics so I can share all the delicious bourbon and BBQ with y’all when we return.

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