Spätzle

A soft green batter scraped into boiling water, finished with speck and cream.

Pork, Egg. Not vegetarian — contains parmesan whose rennet the source does not name, pork.

Ingredients

• 300 g plain flour
• 3 eggs
• 200 g spinach, cooked and squeezed dry
• 120 ml milk
• 1.5 teaspoons salt
• nutmeg
• 150 g speck, in strips
• 200 ml double cream
• 60 g parmesan, grated
• 30 g butter

Method

1. Blend the squeezed spinach with the eggs and milk until completely smooth, then beat in the flour, salt and nutmeg.
2. THE BATTER IS SOFT AND STICKY, not a dough. It should fall slowly from a spoon in a thick ribbon. If you can roll it, it is too dry and the spätzle will be heavy.
3. Beat it hard for 3 minutes and rest it 20.
4. SCRAPE IT INTO BOILING SALTED WATER off a damp board with a knife, in short strips, or push it through a spätzle press. Nothing is rolled, cut or shaped by hand.
5. They are done 30 seconds after they float. Lift them into cold water if not using at once.
6. Fry the speck in the butter until the fat runs, add the cream, and let it bubble to thicken.
7. Turn the drained spätzle through the sauce with the parmesan. Alto Adige, not Italy proper — hence the speck and cream where a Tuscan pasta would have oil.

Our own recipe. This one was written for this site rather than taken from anywhere, so there is no source to point you at. The quantities and the order of the steps are choices, not the only way to do it.

Filed under Italy · All recipes