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German Noodles
Mix 3 fresh eggs with as much flour as will make a stiff paste. Knead this well, using plenty of flour, until all moisture is absorbed. Roll as thin as paper, dry it near the fire, and cut into strips half an inch wide; poach these in a great deal of salted water, boiling for 5 minutes, drain them, serve in soup or alone, with a good sauce or entree.
An egg-noodle dough in its oldest and simplest form: eggs and flour, nothing else. The whole recipe hinges on kneading until the dough is genuinely stiff and dry to the touch, because a slack dough will not roll paper-thin and will swell into dumplings in the pot.
- QuantitiesThree eggs will take roughly 2 to 2 1/4 cups (250-280 g) of all-purpose flour before the dough stops accepting more, though the original deliberately leaves this to the feel of the paste. Add it gradually; the finished mass should feel firm, almost dry, and spring back slowly when pressed.
- No water, no salt in the doughThe eggs are the only liquid. Resist adding water when the dough resists you — rest it, covered, for 30 minutes and it will roll out far more willingly.
- "Dry it near the fire"This means air-drying the rolled sheet until it is leathery but not brittle, 15-30 minutes on a floured cloth or draped over a rack. A hot oven or direct heat will crack it. Drying the surface, along with the flour the recipe calls for, helps keep the strips from sticking together.
- Half-inch stripsThese are broad noodles, closer to a wide egg noodle than to spaghetti. Flour the sheet well, roll it loosely, and slice across the roll; shake the coils out immediately.
- Cooking timeFive minutes suits noodles that have been dried as directed. Freshly cut, undried noodles are done in 2 to 3 minutes — taste rather than time them, and pull them while still faintly firm if they are going into soup, where they keep cooking.
- "A great deal of salted water"At least 4 quarts at a hard boil, salted like pasta water (about 1 tablespoon per 4 quarts). Egg dough sheds a good deal of starch, and crowding it in a small pot makes the noodles gummy.
- Yield and servingEnough for 4 as a side dish or to garnish 6 bowls of broth. Served "alone," they want butter browned with breadcrumbs, or a plain cream sauce; drain and dress them at once, as they stick as they cool.
Egg noodles of this kind — Eiernudeln, or in the thinnest form Suppennudeln — were a staple of German and Austrian home cooking long before dried pasta was sold in shops, and the ability to roll a sheet almost transparent is often said to have been a point of pride in Swabian and Bavarian kitchens in particular. The instruction to dry the sheet by the fire before cutting is part of the same domestic technique, one that the same stiff egg-and-flour paste shares with a good deal of sweet baking; sweetened noodle puddings were common in the same regions.