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Spatzeles
Place in a bowl four ounces sifted flour, gradually add one gill cold water and sharply stir with wooden spoon while adding it. Crack in one fresh egg, season with half teaspoon salt, two saltspoons white pepper, a saltspoon grated nutmeg, sharply stir for five minutes. Have a quart boiling water in a saucepan with half teaspoon salt, take a tablespoon of batter and with a finger drop in pan as rapidly as possible. Proceed in same way till batter is all used, boil for five minutes, lift up with skimmer and thoroughly drain on a cloth. Heat two tablespoons lard in a frying pan, add half a finely chopped onion, brown for two minutes, arrange spatzeles one beside another in pan and fry to a nice golden colour on both sides, drain and use as required.
A straightforward egg-and-flour dumpling batter, boiled then browned in fat. The measurements are period but easy to translate, and the only real trap is the boiling time.
- Gill and saltspoonA gill in American usage is half a cup (4 fl oz); British sources give 5 fl oz. A saltspoon is about a quarter teaspoon, so two saltspoons of white pepper is about half a teaspoon and the nutmeg about a quarter.
- Four ounces of flourWeigh it: 4 oz is about 3/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons of all-purpose flour, not a full cup. With a half cup of water and one egg the batter should be thick enough to cling to the spoon and fall reluctantly in ribbons. If it pours freely, add flour a spoonful at a time.
- The five minutes of stirringThis is not padding. Beating the batter hard develops enough gluten to hold the dumplings together in the water and gives them their characteristic chew. A stand mixer with the paddle does it in two or three minutes.
- Boiling timeFive minutes is too long for dumplings this small. They are done within a minute or so of floating to the surface, usually two to three minutes total; longer and they turn soft and waterlogged, which also spoils the frying.
- Salt the water properlyHalf a teaspoon of salt to a quart is very little. Salt it as you would pasta water, a tablespoon or more, since the dumplings take up seasoning only while boiling.
- Getting them into the panDropping bits of batter off a tablespoon with a wet finger works, as the recipe describes. A spatzle press, a colander with wide holes, or batter scraped in thin strips off a wetted board or plate edge all give more even results. Work in batches so the water stays at a boil.
- Lard and onionButter or a neutral oil substitutes directly for the lard. Half a chopped onion browns in two minutes only if the pan is hot and the onion finely cut; watch it, as scorched onion will carry through the whole dish.
- YieldThis quantity feeds two as a side dish. It doubles and triples without adjustment, but fry in batches rather than crowding the pan, or the dumplings steam instead of browning.
Spatzeles is one of many English spellings of Spätzle, the soft egg dumpling of Swabia in southwestern Germany, whose name is usually explained as a diminutive of Spatz, sparrow, from the small irregular shapes the batter takes in the water. The nutmeg and white pepper are characteristic of German savory doughs of the period, and the final step of frying the boiled dumplings in fat with onion is closer to the Swabian habit of serving leftover Spätzle browned in butter than to the plain buttered version usually seen today.