Spätzle (pronounced 'Spaitz-le'). Better than mac and cheese??

This past weekend J's and my attempt to hike in the mountains outside Munich was thankfully thwarted by bad weather. I guess we're not the only ones that think we shouldn't messing with nature. In it's place, we spent the day in Augsburg (who's U.S sister city is Dayton) wandering the streets, 'hiking' through the woods in the rain, and meeting new people connected to J's mentor here. The best part was finding ourselves in all these apartments, and seeing how people live, and of course, how the eat. That night, we were invited to a friend's house, along with 10 other people for a simple communal dinner or shared ingredients on hand. I jumped at the chance, particularly when I heard the main course was going to be homemade spätzle. I've only had this once at a restaurant in Heidelberg, and it was so bad I was prepared to leave it be, but I figured if 10+ people were prepared to plan a Saturday night around it, they must be good at making it. Let's just say it made up for that hike through the rain!

S, sad to say, I couldn't make this one a challenge due to the key role onions play. They really are crucial to the final product. But I'm convinced if you were EVER going to like onions, it would be in this dish! That night we also made a mushroom cream sauce with mushrooms we had found on the hike. (I'm using that 'we' liberally, as one of the guys with us was a forester and knew which mushrooms were edible, and I did not in fact, do any of the actual mushroom picking). BUT, combined with salt, pepper and cream after being sauteed in a closed pot for a half hour, they made an amazing sauce for the 'noodles.' So maybe you could try this?

We started by combining the incredibly simple ingredients to make the dough. When I think dough, I think something that should be kneaded, but this was more like a batter it was so soupy.



At the same time we began to saute the onions in butter. Lots of onions.

After the dough was ready, we scooped two scoops worth into this fun little spätzle contraption, sort of like a mandolin, that pushed the dough drops into a boiling pot of water below. I was told this device is unnecessary - you can easily use a collander and push through with a wood spoon.



The dough rises to the top in 1-2 minutes, at which point you remove the spätzle with a slotted spoon and place into a small buttered lasagna pan. As the dough takes a few batches, you can keep it in the oven on warm in between. After each batch, layer with sufficient amount of grated gruyer and bergkäse (or emmanthaler) and pepper.




Repeat this process until you've used all the dough.

Spread onions on the top layer and place back in the oven until cheese is melted.

The sooner you serve, the better, as the cheese is still nice and soft.




Ingredients:

Spätzle dough (serves 4)
-500 ml flour
-1/4 liter water
-5 eggs
-1 tbs salt

1 cup grated gruyer
1 cup grated Emmanthaler
pepper
3 onions (a total guess)

J says this is his favorite meal he's had since he's been here. Just to give you an idea!