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Macaroni Nudels
Nudel paste, like Italian macaroni, to which it is nearly allied, is a "home-made" preparation of eggs and flour, useful in a variety of ways, and equally applicable to sweet and savory dishes. It is made thus: Take as many eggs as will be required for the quantity of paste to be made, but use only the whites of eggs, if preferred quite white. Work in as much flour to 2 well-beaten eggs as will make a stiff dough, knead until smooth, and roll out, first dividing the mass into six parts, and each part into a round ball, on a pasteboard kept well dredged with flour. A perfectly straight rolling-pin is one of the requisites to perfect nudel-making. The desired thinness to which the paste is to be rolled may be best illustrated by the saying, "To arrive at the perfection of nudel-rolling is to be able to read through the paste." Having accomplished this, dry each cake on a napkin--a few minutes will do this--commence with the first rolled cake by cutting it into equal halves and quarters. Lay one quarter on the other, make the cut edges meet equally, and with a sharp knife cut through in as thread-like a manner as possible, then dry; by scattering them they will separate; or the paste rolled, as before indicated, is cut with a tin-cutter into stars, rings, etc., which may be stamped out, and piled one cake on the other; they will separate on being thrown into boiling soup. Boil same as macaroni.
This is fresh egg noodle dough by another name, written before packaged pasta was common in American kitchens. The one thing to carry away: the cooking time is nothing like macaroni's.
- "Boil same as macaroni" — ignore the timing"Boil same as macaroni" — ignore the timing. Period directions for dried macaroni generally called for twenty minutes or more of boiling; paper-thin fresh nudels are done in a few minutes, and cut shapes stamped from the same sheet take about as long. Dropped into soup they need only a minute or two before serving.
- Flour quantity"As much flour as will make a stiff dough" works out to roughly 1½ to 2 cups (200–250 g) of all-purpose flour per 2 large eggs. Add it gradually; the dough should be firm and slightly dry rather than tacky, since a soft dough will not roll thin without tearing.
- Whites onlyUsing whites alone gives a paler, more translucent noodle; the author offers it simply as an option for those who prefer the paste "quite white". Expect a firmer, springier, less rich noodle, and use less flour, since the whites alone amount to less liquid than whole eggs.
- Rest before rollingThe recipe moves straight from kneading to rolling. Wrap the balls and let them sit 30 minutes at room temperature first — the gluten relaxes and the sheet will roll thin enough to read through, which is otherwise very hard by hand.
- Drying on a napkinA few minutes of surface drying is exactly right: the sheet should feel leathery, not brittle. Dried too long it cracks under the knife instead of cutting cleanly.
- Cutting the stackFolding quarters on top of one another and slicing across is the traditional method, but flour the cut faces generously or the layers weld together. A rolled cylinder of floured sheet, sliced crosswise, does the same job.
- Salt the waterThere is no salt anywhere in the dough or the instructions. Salt the cooking water well, or salt the soup, or the noodles will taste flat.
- Yield and keepingTwo eggs and their flour make roughly ten ounces of noodles, enough for two or three as a side or to garnish soup for several. Fully air-dried nudels keep in a tin for a few weeks; if any softness remains, refrigerate or freeze them.
"Nudel" is simply the German word, and its appearance in an American compilation of this sort reflects the influence of German-speaking cooks on nineteenth-century home cookery in the United States — noodle soup, noodle puddings and buttered noodles belong to the same tradition as coffee cake and sauerkraut. The author's framing is telling: macaroni is treated as the known quantity and nudels as the homemade equivalent, factory-dried pasta being an article of commerce while the sheet here is rolled at home. The boast about reading through the paste is quoted in the recipe as a saying, and similar tests for thinness are reported in German and Central European kitchens; the cut shapes — stars, rings — belong to the same family as the tiny soup pastas still sold today.