Sunday, December 2, 2007

Herbed Spaetzle

Based on a Martha recipe

Ingredients

  • 1 cup skim milk
  • 1 tbs thyme leaves (we used dried)
  • 1/4 cup packed parsley
  • 3 eggs
  • 1.5 cups all-purpose flour
  • 1.5 tsp salt
  • pepper
  • olive oil
Put thyme leaves in a sachet or tea bag and tie shut. Put it in a saucepan with the milk and heat to a boil. Remove from heat and discard thyme.
Transfer milk to a blender; add parsley and eggs. Blend until combined.
Whisk flour and 1.5 tsp salt in a medium bowl.
Gradually whisk in milk mixture until smooth.
Bring a medium saucepan of salted water to a boil.
Put the "dough" in a plastic bag and snip off one of the corners. Make sure this is a pretty small hole.
Pipe the mixture slowly into the boiling water. Cook until the spaetzle float to the top, about 1-2 minutes. Using a slotted spoon, transfer to an ice-water bath. Drain.
Take half the spaetzle and put it in a pan with some olive oil. Cook until golden brown. Repeat with the other half of the spaetzle.
Garnish with more parsley and romano/parmesan cheese. Eat.

Thoughts: This was all right. The texture came out kind of funny and boiling the spaetzle in the water was pretty much a failure. The original recipe called for 1 cup of whole milk rather than 1 cup of skim. That could have accounted for the weird texture. Also, the original recipe called for cooking the spaetzle in butter rather than olive oil. Maybe there's something to be said for using full-fat ingredients. Also, the spaeztle totally stuck together after we took them out of the boiling water and drained them, so that was inconvenient. All in all, though, they tasted pretty good. If I were going to make this again, I would definitely use like, half skim and half whole milk, or something, and I would cook them in butter afterward rather than olive oil. Also, neither of us really know what spaetzle is supposed to taste like.

Disaster Index: 4-5/10. Edible.

1 comment:

Em said...

idea: put oil or cooking spray in the water to prevent them sticking together.