I haven’t made either of these for a very long time, but this week, I have a club pack of proper chicken breasts in the fridge waiting to be split up and packaged for the freezer, so I figured why not?

I don’t think I’ve actually made proper spaetzle since we moved into the house nearly nine years ago. I’ve made variations of noodles for soups and dumplings for stews, but these are, to my mind, an entirely different beastie. A delicious, mouth-watering, oh-so-fattening beastie!

Spaetzle

Ingredients

4 c flour
1/2 tsp kosher salt
pinch ground pepper
pinch ground nutmeg or paprika (optional)
4 lg eggs
1 1/4 c whole milk

Directions

Mix dry ingredients in a large mixer bowl. Separately, beat the eggs, and add to the milk. Make a well in the dry ingredients, and add the wet. With the dough hook, knead the dough (scraping edges occasionally) for 15 minutes. Bubbles of air should be visible in the dough – if there are none, continue kneading a bit longer.

Bring a large pot of salted water to boil. You can either press your dough through a colander or other strainer, or through a spaetzle press, or add a bit more flour to the dough and ‘cut’ it off a cutting board, dropping the pieces into the water.

The dough will fall to the bottom of the pot, but will rise to float when the little dumplings are cooked.

Serve with schnitzel and your choice of gravy, or fry with butter for extra richness!

Chicken Schnitzel

Ingredients

2 large chicken breasts, sliced in half horizontally
1 c flour
pinch salt & pepper
2 eggs
1 tbsp honey or dijon mustard
2 c bread crumbs
2 tbsp olive oil
2 tbsp butter

Directions

Pound the chicken breasts until each piece is approximately 1/4 to 1/8 inch thick. Mix the flour and seasonings together, and dredge each piece. Beat the eggs and mustard together, and dip each piece of chicken until well coated. Next, roll through the bread crumbs, covering each generously.

In a large, heavy pan, melt the butter and olive oil together. When hot and mixed, add each piece to the pan. Fry for about five minutes on each side, until golden brown.

Serve with Spaetzle & gravy!

Hope you enjoy…
<3 JL