Nokedli (Hungarian) or Spaetzle (German) is a free-form pasta made from a thick batter that is grated into boiling water through a special nokedli/spaetzle maker or pressed through a colander.
You can buy a spaetzle/nokedli maker on Amazon. It will cost you no more than $20, including delivery. Instead of this device, you can use a colander with rather large holes.
This pasta is super simple to make, much simpler than other pasta types for which you have to knead a dough, roll it out and cut in a certain shape. This pasta also cooks much faster. Basically, it's cooked the moment it floats up the surface.
So if you like homemade pasta, but are dreading the long process that making Italian pasta implies, this one will be perfect for you.
You will need:
- 1 cup AP flour
- 1 large egg
- ½ tsp salt
- 1/3 – ½ cup water (start with 1/3 cups and then check the consistency. The dough should be very thick and rather drop from a spoon than easily pour from it.)
Stir all the ingredients together until thick sticky batter forms. Let rest about 10 minutes while you heating water in a large pot.
When the water start boiling, add salt like for cooking a regular pasta. Spray/brush the spaetzle/nokedli maker with a cooking oil. Place it over the pot and fill the hopper (the sliding thing on top) with the batter. Moving it back and forth, grate the dough into the simmering water.
Once the pasta has risen to the surface, it's cooked. If you like it softer, let it cook for another 20-30 seconds. Remove from the pot with a skimmer and put in a bowl. Toss with a teeny bit of oil to prevent it from sticking together.
In the same manner, cook the rest of the batter.
Toss the warm pasta with a sauce and serve right away.
Traditionally, nokedli and spaetzle are served with some stew or meat with gravy. Or are fried in butter and served with cheese. My suggestion is to treat this dish as a regular pasta or noodles and use it with any pasta sauce to your liking or any braised meat, poultry or fish. Tasteful fusion never hurts, if you ask me.
The simplest would be brown butter with sage, my all-time favorite for pasta. Melt butter in a small sauce pan and continue to cook it on a medium heat, watching closely, until it becomes golden brown (but not black and burned) and smell nutty. Strain the butter through a fine sieve into another pot. Heat the butter until hot and add fresh sage leaves. Remove the pan from the heat right away as sage leaves cooks very fast. Pour the butter over the freshly cooked nokedli/spaetzle and serve. You can also sprinkle some parmesan or pecorino on top.
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