Spätzle (Swabian noodles)

“Spätzle” is a typical dish from southern Germany. They can be eaten to accompany a main course of meat or can themselves be a main course when combined with other ingredients.

Basic recipe

You will need (for 6-8 portions):

Ingredients for basic recipe

8 eggs
520g plain flour
1/2 tsp salt

In addition you will need some seasoning such as ground pepper or sweet red pepper powder.

We use a very fine type of flour called “Spätzle-Mehl”.

Spätzlepresse
You will also need the tool to make the Spätzle – this is called a “Spätzlepresse” and is similar to a potato masher, so you could try using one of those. You will probably be able to find the original article on ebay.de or
cookplanet.com
.

First steps
Break the eggs into a large bowl. Add the salt. Now slowly add the flour and seasoning and stir with a spoon until the mixture is firm with small bubbles.

breaking the eggsadding the saltmixingThe mixture is now firm

Now prepare a large saucepan of bowling water.

Through the press

Load the spätzlepresse with the mixture and hold it over the saucepan. Now press the mixture through the press so that the spätzle land in the water. Cut off with a knife if necessary.

The water is boilingThe mixture goes into the spätzlepresse... is pushed through ...... and through ...... and is cut off ...... into the water

The spätzle will sink and then rise. Once risen, leave for 2 minutes and then remove from the water with a sieve. Place them in a covered bowl.

Fetch the spätzle out with a sievePlace in the bowl and cover

They can now be served in this form as a side dish.

[audio:http://www.allthingsgerman.net/podcast/mp3/2006-11-26_spaetzle_basic.mp3]
Listen to the recipe as a podcast

Variations

Baked spätzle with chives, sour cream and bacon

Questions or suggestions? Put them in the Forum!

Truly German: Sweet catchers

Catching sweets at the carnival procession can be dangerous. Not only are there sweets and other things flying through the air, but if you do manage to catch something it might get snatched out of your hand.

Even if you are only watching the procession go by, there’s no guarantee that your neighbour will not knock you over with their over-sized handbag.

And I’m only talking about the adults!

(Press the “play” button to listen to the podcast)

Download the MP3 file

Subscribe to the podcast

Post boxes

Post boxes on Lanzarote seem to come in a variety of shapes and forms. There are official ones that you see on street corners – yellow and solid, much like in the UK. And then there are the plastic ones, often seen at the doors of supermarkets.

Since you can often buy stamps in shops selling postcards, the logical extension of this is for them to have their own post box as well. Although they rarely say on them how often they will be emptied.

Here are a selection of the models that we have seen:

Street corner postbox on Lanzarote
The street corner version
In the entrance to a supermarket
In the entrance to a supermarket
The mini in-store version
The mini in-store version

Do you know of any others?

Please click on ACCEPT to give us permission to set cookies [more information]

This website uses cookies to give you the best browsing experience possible. Cookies are small text files that are stored by the web browser on your computer. Most of the cookies that we use are so-called “Session cookies”. These are automatically deleted after your visit. The cookies do not damage your computer system or contain viruses. Please read our privacy information page for more details or to revoke permission.

Close