Election Spaetzle

What better than making and eating Spaetzle on this election night, while listening to npr and watching the NYTimes statistics crawl higher and higher on the blue side of the political spectrum.. I'm optimistic, & hungry, and I have leftover from last night that is perfect for this, so - Spaetzle it is.

First, a little background: Spaetzle is a very traditional staple food of southern Germany, Switzerland and Austria. Spaetzle are essentially egg noodles.

The main ingredients are flour, eggs, sometimes a little water, and salt. The major fluidity of the dough comes from the eggs. Consistency and texture of the dough depend on how the Spaetzle will be finally shaped.
There are three ways to get them into the boiling or simmering water:
they can be scraped from a wooden board, that's what I did tonight.resulting in thicker, lengthy, very irregular shaped Spaetzle. This requires a thicker dough as shown in the photo of my tonights dough (that did not include any water) almost like a dumpling dough.
Or they are pressed through a Spaetzlespresse, resulting in longer and thinner Spaetzle that resemble more typical noodles (needing a more liquid dough), or, lastly, they are scraped through a device called Spaetzleshobel (this dough is typically the most liquid of all three), resulting in small Spaetzle-blobs, called "Knoepfle" (little buttons).


The Spaetzle need to hang out in the simmering/boiling water til they start to rise. At that point they can be lifted out and added to a bowl of already waiting Spaetzle-friends..

Adding a little bit of butter to that bowl helps them not caking together. Also, draining them well after lifting them out of the water makes them more easily separateable.

At this point you can (and I do) dive in and eat the hell out of them.. they are sooooo good. And so easy to do..

The Spaetzle idea came to me last night, actually, but after making the "sauce" I had intended I was too lazy for Spaetzle-making. But, there is plenty leftover, and this is what it is: a little stew from veal, dried porcini, and carrots, with onion, and fresh herbs from my garden (thyme, rosemary, sage, a little lavender), as well as bay leaves and juniper berries to get the whole thing a little bit a hint of game..
This is how it looked last night :-) And this is how it looks with Spaetzle :-D
What a difference.. !
The polls look like Pennsylvania and Ohio go to Obama, which means I'm stuffed & tastewise happy, but also politically quite a bit more relaxed.. optimism paid out, the celebration Spaetzle turned out amazing and so did the context.
Now I need a Schnaps :)