When it comes to noodles, it’s easy to think you’ve got a pretty good grasp on that whole sitch, right? I mean, you’ve got your ramen, your udon, some rice noodles, and of course, everyone’s trusty workhorse –spaghetti. Well, it’s time to expand your noodle-y horizons and talk about spaetzle. Ready, Set, Go –Spaetzle is an egg-noodle-meets-dumpling type dish of German origin (though numerous countries also lay claim to the spaetzle –like Austria, Hungary, and Switzerland). As with many pastas, it’s a great base for an endless number of dishes –it can be served with meat or sausages and gravy, put in soups, mixed with cheese and onions, even as a dessert mixed with cherries, sugar, and cinnamon, or just simply covered in butter.
Best of all, it’s incredibly easy to make. I always assumed pasta making took major time and skill, but this dish is easy-peasey. Seriously, it has like four ingredients. And lucky for all of us, Wolfgang Ban has been super awesome and showed us exactly how to go about making the dish, a popular order at his current culinary residence, Paulaner. At Paulaner they serve their spaetlze as a mac ‘n’ cheese of sorts, topped with seasonal veggies and fried onions (*swoon*). And while that certainly seems like a top-notch way to enjoy the noodles, as Ban points out, you can eat the them however you want –you can eat them in a house, you can eat them with a mouse, you can eat them here or there, you can eat them covered in butter in an enormous bowl all for you because you don’t want to share.
Check out the video below, as well as instructions, to learn how to make your own spaetzle. And if this spaetzle lesson has sparked a new love for German cuisine, be sure to visit Paulaner (265 Bowery) to try their whole menu of Bavarian treats. Executive Chef Daniel Kill (previously of Munich’s Michelin-starred Tantris) serves up simple but sophisticated cuisine, from potato pancakes, to schnitzel, to the traditional obazda (a creamy dish made with Camembert, beer, butter, and spicy red pepper, served with a warm, soft pretzel); don’t forget strudel for dessert. And of course, no visit to Paulaner would be complete without trying one (or more) of the five house-brewed beers from Master Brewer Andreas Heidenreich. Make your tastebuds happy at Paulaner, or in your own kitchen, or better yet, both.
Lauren is a New York based actor/singer/writer. She is a graduate of the American Repertory Theater/Moscow Art Theater School Institute for Advanced Theater Training at Harvard University as well as the College of the Holy Cross. She’s a fan of beer, pasta, and academic establishments with unnecessarily long titles. Find her on stage, or online– she’s there often.
