SC - German Spa:etzle,

[allilyn at juno.com]

Flour, eggs, a little milk, shake of nutmeg, warm, melted butter in the
hot dish.  Make a gloppy dough/batter.  You need a hand-held cutting
board and a sharp knife with a flat edge, not curved as a French chopping
knife is.  Biiiig pan of boiling water.  The more eggs to the rest of the
batter, the more tender the spa:etzle.  Most cookbook recipes will call
for 1-2 eggs to over 2 cups of flour.  We will do better!  I start with
around 3 cups of flour for home use, add 1/2 C. milk, around 1/4 t.
nutmeg, 1/2 t. salt (sometimes--I usually salt the cooking water) and
start breaking in eggs and stirring thoroughly.  

When it is the 'right' consistency, I pull a stool over by the stove,
rest the cutting board on the edge of the pan of boiling water, put a
glop of batter (really, it's thicker than batter, but not as firm as
dough) on the edge of the board.  With the knife, flip some boiling water
onto the batter, use a back and forth motion to 'thin' the batter a bit
with the water.  Use rapid motions to repeatedly shave small pieces of
the stuff into the boiling water.  A splash of oil in the water helps to
keep it from boiling over.  When the spaetzle float back up to the
surface they are usually nearly done.  You develop an eye for it.  Use a
slotted spoon to remove them and place in a large stoneware oval dish
that has been in the family for a century or so, or any other heat-proof,
low sided container, in which you have a stick or two of melted butter. 
You can put in more nutmeg if you like.  Toss the spaetzle with the
butter, so they are coated with flavor and don't stick together.  

Make more.  Keep doing this, not letting the boiling pan get crowded,
until all the batter is gone.  Keep your spaetzle warm.

For feasts, it's a little more liquidy than I usually make at home, which
is nearly all egg.  For 50, I've used 5 C. flour to 6 eggs, 3 C. milk. 
For 200, 18-20 C. flour to 26 eggs, 12 C. milk.    This is
approximate--if I don't need all the milk, I don't add it.  These are
extremely labor intensive.  Make them at home and freeze, if you want to
do for a feast.  They freeze very well.

It's not the recipe so much as it is the method.  We can make some at
Pennsic if you want.  They are pretty good with game.  Maybe we should do
them Tuesday afternoon.  Yes, others can come.  Just let me know.



Regards,
Allison,     allilyn at juno.com


On Tue, 21 Mar 2000 06:59:48 EST Tollhase1 at aol.com writes:
>In a message dated 3/21/00 5:20:45 AM Eastern Standard Time, 
>allilyn at juno.com 
>writes:
>
><< The fresh pasta I make is the German Spa:etzle, and it is also a 
>lot
> better than the packaged type. >>
>Could I have a  copy of the spa:etzle recipe
>
>Frederich
>=================================================================

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