To begin you will need:
250 grams of all purpose flour
3 whole eggs
1 teaspoon of salt ( I used fresh ground sea salt)
90 ml of water
While you are getting all your ingredients together, start a large pot of water, and bring it to a boil. This way you don’t have to wait for the water to heat up after you are done mixing the dough. Multitasking is important in any kitchen! Add a little bit of salt to the water to help season the noodles while cooking, not too much though! We don’t want salty noodles!
Mix all your ingredients in a medium size bowl, and mix them together with a wooden spoon. If you find that the dough is to dry you can add another little touch of water. Whether you will need to add more water or not can depend on the size of the eggs you used (how much moisture they added to the overall recipe), and the measuring cup you used to measure the water. Some measuring cups seem to be a little larger than others.
Once the dough is smooth and drips of the spoon in large lumps, it should be ready to go. It is OK if the mix is a little thicker, this will simply result in a denser and less fluffy noodle. You can adjust the amount of water in future recipes to create a runnier dough if you like.
To cook the spätzle there are 3 main methods generally used. Passing the dough through a handheld pasta extruder, will result in long spaghetti like noodles. You could also place some of the mix on a cutting board or specially made spatzle board and with the help of a wet palate knife or spatula, push/cut small sections of the dough into the boiling water. The method I use is with a colander(or perforated hotel pan) that has large holes about 5mm in diameter. Press the dough through the holes right into the boiling water. Traditionally you would use a spätzlehobel, but if you don’t have access to one, you can even use a board cheese grater though it is not as fast and a little bit messier.
You will know the spätzle are done when they float to the surface. Make sure to take them out of the water right away with a slotted spoon or a sieve so that they do not over cook and become tough. For this reason it is best to boil the spätzle in smaller batches.
Once the Spatzle are cooked you can cool them down and refrigerate them for use in casseroles,or substitute them in any pasta dishes! They are delicious pan fried until slightly golden and simply topped with butter as well!.
