Schwabian spaetzle

My 81 year old mother is a very good German cook, though she would beg to differ. She comes by it honestly as her father was a chef to a German count. My favorite dish that she makes is spaetzle and specifically the Schwabian kind, lovely, dense egg noodles made from scratch and covered in pork, and mushroom gravy was a winter staple for me and still is.

She used to make it without the aid of a spaetzle press by cutting the very dense dough against a cutting board, creating each noodle one by one, a tiring process to say the least. But it was the only way to make them until the press was invented.

The press cut down, not only the time it took to make spaetzle, but the effort involved in the process. The reason I mention this is because, if it weren’t for the press, I wouldn’t have been able to eat spaetzle at all for the past 20 years or so. Also, my husband wouldn’t be able to make spaetzle today .

My husband fell in love with my mom’s spaetzle the first time I took him to dinner at my parents’ place . Being British, he’d never eaten spaetzle before, and it quickly became his favorite meal. So much so that asked my mother to teach him how to make it.  Now that’s the mark of a man to marry.

I was never interested in cooking, I don’t have the patience for it, but that’s me. I am a lover of good food and really appreciate anyone who can make it. The fact that my husband wants to make my favorite winter meal was a huge part of why I married him.