Spatzle

I made these in an effort to use some of my stash of semolina flour. They were dense and chewy, al dente like good pasta is, and my family and I quite liked them.

The batter comes together in about 30 seconds; it’s considerably stiffer than other spatzle batters I’ve made and I couldn’t push it through a colander (I don’t own a spaetzle maker) so I used the author’s flick-pieces-off-a-spoon-into-boiling-water method. It worked. Make sure your cooking water is well salted as there is no salt in the spatzle. They cook very quickly (< 1 minute) and because of their texture, don’t require the extra sauté step as some do. I doubled the recipe to serve 5 people and served them with goulash.

This is the first James Beard recipe I’ve tried and I found the instructions lacking. There’s no mention of salt, no indication of # of servings (Cookstr has added information about this) and no hint as to how long you can expect to cook the spatzle before it’s done. It’s lost a star for this reason.