Thyme For Spaetzle

When I think of German food, I’m always reminded of my grandpa Hugo. To my remembrance, my grandpa was someone who experimented in the kitchen and never followed an exact recipe. An old world cook who did things mostly by taste and feel, much like me. My recipe “Thyme For Spaetzle” is an ode to my grandpa, and my German heritage.

The renewed excitement I have for making spaetzle comes from my new spaetzle maker (i.e. kitchen toy) that I learned about from my friend Hani  of Haniela’s, and her YouTube channel “What To Cook Next“. Immediately after watching Hani’s video, I hopped on over to Amazon.com and ordered my spaetzle maker, along with another cookbook to add to my vastly growing collection (don’t judge me, LOL).

I barely could control my excitement when Mr. FedEx delivered this box to my door. Squeel! I’m pretty easy to please 🙂 To my knowledge my grandpa never used a spaetzle maker. I think he was more of a colander kind of guy, but to me this looked like a lot more fun!

With my trusty spaetzle maker in hand, and a big pot of boiling water on the stove, I was ready to cook up (and bring back) some memories.

If you’ve ever used a mandolin slicer, you’ll understand the concept of a spaetzle maker. By adding the dough into the basket on top of the slicer.Then, sliding the funnel back and forth over the boiling water, the dough is cut into tiny dumpling sizes and the spaetzle cooks in a matter of seconds. Fast and fun!

THYME FOR SPAETZLE      {PRINT THIS RECIPE}
Serves: 6          Prep time:  5 minutes        Cook time:  10 minutes


3 eggs
1 cup milk plus 2 tablespoons
3 cups flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon garlic powder
1/4 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
1 1/2 teaspoon fresh thyme leaves 2 tablespoons butter

-Bring a large pot of salted water to boil over medium high heat.

-In a medium size bowl whisk the eggs until foamy. Add in the 1 cup milk and flour and switch to a wooden spoon.

-Stir in the salt, garlic powder, nutmeg and thyme leaves. If the dough seems too stiff, stir in the additional 2 tablespoons of milk. The consistency should be of a slightly stiff pancake batter.

-Place the spaetzle maker over the pot of boiling water. Add 1 cup  of the spaetzle batter into the basket.

-Slide the basket slowly, side to side.  As you do, tiny bits of dough will fall into the water. Continue sliding until all the batter is gone and then stir the water in order to break up any dumplings that have clumped together. As soon as they all float, the dumplings are ready to be removed with a large slotted spoon or a strainer.

-Place the cooked dumplings in a bowl and continue the process with the remaining batter.

-Add the butter to the bowl of cooked spaetzle and stir.

-Serve warm, and enjoy!

Now, I’m pretty sure that my recipe “Thyme For Spaetzle” is not an authentic German recipe (except in heart and spirit). It’s one that I had a lot of fun with in my own kitchen, and I played just with a bit. That said, I think next time I make spaetzle I might even use beer in place of milk in the recipe just for an extra little twist of flavor. Is it so wrong?! Don’t answer that! 🙂

Speaking of beer… Mind if I do a little bit of blatant self promotion? Cheers to that! LOL

                   Please contact me if you’d like additional information about my hand painted products and/or ordering information.

Until we eat again,
Reneé

I’m happily linking up this post to Skip To My Lou ~ Made By You Monday