I’ve recently posted two Hungarian recipes, Beef Goulash and Paprikas Csirke on my blog under “Ask a Chef” and both would be great served with homemade spaetzle. I asked Chef Ricco who provided the two recipes for his favorite spaetzle recipe and I would like to share it with you.

First Ricco gave me his little history of who invented spaetzle along with a few tricks in making the dough. He says,

“Austrian and Germany are fighting over who invented this egg noodle pasta, that is why the Hungarians serve that noodle called csipetke. It’s really a spaetzle, but maybe a little stiffer dough.  

There are a few tricks in making this dough. Winter wheat flour is the best or you may call it “hard flour”. It has more gluten than summer wheat or “soft wheat flour”. The other trick, this is really not a trick, when you mix the ingredients you must use a wooden spoon, now here comes the fun part, you have to mix it until your arm hurts, then mix it some more, until it feels like your arm is going to fall off. The spaetzle is going too look very glossy; the texture will be in-between dough and a batter.

When boiling the spaetzle use a big pot with maximum water and plenty of salt. If you use a special spaetzle sieve, just a plain colander or even if you put the batter on a wooden board and flick little pieces of the dough into boiling water, the most important thing here is too keep the batter as far as you can away from the steam. The steam will make the dough very gooey.

Cook the spaetzle in small batches, when they float to the top of the pot skim them out and put them in a cold-water bath just until they are cooled. Then coat them with a little oil so they don’t stick together. To reheat the cooked spaetzle, just sauté them up in a little butter. If you are going to sever them right away, don’t cool them just toss them in a little melted butter. “

Now for the recipe.

Spaetzle Ingredients
 
18 ounces of sifted flour
4 whole large eggs
1-tablespoon olive oil
3 - 4 tablespoons heavy cream
1-tablespoon salt
½ teaspoon ground pepper
½ teaspoon ground nutmeg

How to Make Spaetzle at Home

Combine all the ingredients as described above but just before your arm falls off.

Boil in a large pot of salted water until the dough floats.

Work in small batches.

Skim the floating spaetzle from the pot and place cold water to cool off.

Coat with a bit of oil to prevent them from sticking together.

Photo from Germanfoods.org web site until I can take a good photograph myself.

Have you ever heard of a pasta called orzo?  Orzo is the Italian word for barley but in the US, it is commonly know as an enriched durum semolina pasta. It’s a rice shaped, great in pasta salads, soups and one of my favorite dishes, seafood orzo salad.

How to Cook Orzo

The easiest way to cook orzo is with lots of water. For example, to cook one cup of orzo, I would bring 2 quarts of water to a boil, add 1 teaspoon of salt and gradually pour in the orzo and stir immediately.

Bring the water back to a boil and cook for 8 – 10 minutes. Drain immediately and season to taste. 1 cup of uncooked orzo yields about 2 ½ cups of cook orzo.

However in this recipe, the orzo is going to act more like an aborio rice for making risotto. We are going to add just enough liquid so it all gets absorbed into the orzo pasta. I’m not sure why the recipe doesn’t just use all chicken stock and no water for more flavor. I’ll experiment with this and see if it makes a difference.

Carrot Orzo Recipe

I saw this recipe in the March 2007 issue of Bon Appetit, one of my favorite cooking magazines. It is simple and makes a great side dish for a variety of meals plus most kids like both carrots and pasta so this is a good side dish that has both.

Ingredients

1 ½ cups peeled carrots – I like using the prepared mini carrots that are already peeled because we always have them around since our kids love to snack on them. You can use peeled regular carrots too. The recipe calls for 6 ounces and I’m guessing that’s about 2 or 3 large carrots.
2 tablespoons butter
1 cup orzo pasta
1 ½ cups water
1 ¼ cups chicken stock
1 large garlic clove, minced
¼ cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese – they don’t mention freshly grated, but try to stay away from any of those tubes of grated Parmesan, it just isn’t that good.
2 tablespoons green onion, chopped – Green onions are just young onions that have been pulled from the ground before the bulb has formed and the tops are still green. Think of scallions.
1 teaspoon minced fresh rosemary.

How to Make Carrot Orzo at Home

A food processor is the easiest way to process the carrots but you could cut everything up by hand. It will definitly add to the prep time. Process the carrots using the on/off or pulse button on your processor until the carrots are finely cut up.

Heat your saucepan over medium heat, add butter. When the butter is melted, add the orzo and carrots and cook (saute) until the orzo is golden. This should take about 5 minutes.

Add the water, chicken stock and minced garlic. Let this all cook uncovered until all the water and chicken stock are absorbed into the orzo being sure to stir frequently. This should take about 10 minutes.

Now it’s time to add the Parmesan cheese, green onions and rosemary. Taste and adjust seasonings with salt & pepper.

Easy and different!

I thought I have heard about most types of pasta but this was a new one to me. I’m not even sure how it ended up in our pantry except I must of grabbed it when purchasing a bunch of what I thought were boxes of spaghetti.

We were serving the pasta as a side dish for something I was making and gave it to the girls with butter, peas and freshly grated Parmesan cheese for dinner.  When the girls started twirling in their mouths and sucking up the end of the strands, they noticed there was a whole running the length of the pasta.

When they told me the pasta had a hole in it, I played along and said, “Yeah right. Why don’t you use it like a straw and drink some of your milk?”

Sure enough they did so I checked it out myself and the pasta had a tiny hole running through the middle of it. The perciatelli noodle, pronounced “pear-chuh-TELL-lee” and sometimes called bucatini, looks just like spaghetti but only fatter and the tiny hole.

Great for serving with hearty meat sauces like Bolognese because of thicker texture but also works well in classic Italian soups like minestrone. And I can say from experience, it is great with just butter and grated cheese although be prepared to watch your kids “play” with their food. You just may find yourself playing with it yourself.

Where to Buy It

More than likely you’re not going to find this pasta at your local supermarket but will have to look for it at a specially market or Italian grocer. I found my by accident so I can’t even tell you where I purchased it but I’m sure you can find it on line too. If you have a recipes that calls for perciatelli, you can try substituting linguini or fettucine but what fun would that be.

How to Cook Pasta

Everyone knows how to cook pasta but there are a few hints and tips that will make your even better.
Check out my Pasta Tips page for some helpful hints. And for a listing of some of my favorite pasta recipes, check out my Pasta Recipes page.