Spaetzle

Mark's birthday is on Monday, but we are had a special dinner on Saturday.

He loves Austro-Hungarian food (or German, depending on who you ask) so Rolf & I made kase spaetzle, for dinner. Spaetzle is a hot food right now, I see it turning up all kinds of chichi menus, as well as featured in gourmet cooking magazines.

We find that pretty funny, considering it is one of the cheapest things to produce, second only to regular pasta, that doesn't contain eggs.

There are lots of recipes, but we use, just eggs and flour.

The key is to beat the hell out of it, so that it becomes very elastic, and we do it by hand, which is why it is a two man job.

You can make it just fine by pressing the batter through a colander, but we use a "spaetzle machine" which gives the signature teardrop shape, that most people are familiar with.

You can find all you ever wanted to know about spaetzle here.
The classic southern German dish is served with Swiss cheese and caramelized onions.

The onions stink the house up really badly- so much that we have considered buying a electric skillet so that we could cook the onions outside on the deck.
This is a terrible, unflattering photo of me, in which you can almost smell that stinky onion oil, that is clinging to my clothing and skin. Ewwww.

I am pressing the batter through the holes of the machine, with a little shuttle.

This is dangerous work- a few years ago, the shuttle slide off and I plunged my arm up to the elbow into the boiling water. Not good, I am more slow and cautious these days!

Rolf taking over, because I am wimpy and cannot pour the heavy batter.
and finally, making the cucumber salad, with the razor sharp slicer- like a fool that has never had her finger tip cut off (I have) I am not using the little protector device, because it gets in the way.