I'm On A Mission

I'm on a mission to digitize. One of my new year's resolutions was to rid myself of clutter, and that especially means things that can be stored electronically, rather than taking up space on shelves and in closets. I have binder upon binder of recipes that I've printed, clipped and saved over the years, and it's time to make some sense out of them. I have a program on my computer, an electronic cookbook of sorts, but it requires a lot of typing to get each recipe put into the system. So, I've made a promise to myself. Each time I cook one of the recipes from a binder, I will determine whether it is worth saving, and then type it out electronically. This will spread out the work, and slowly, I'll work my way through everything I've saved over the countless years, keeping only the exceptional recipes. Sound like a plan? Sounds like a monster of a plan to me, but I've committed, and so it was with gusto that I pulled my binder off the counter this morning to determine what we'd have for dinner.

A wrench was thrown into my original plan to use some chicken thighs that I purchased over the weekend, when a delivery of meat that I had ordered on a special deal arrived, less than frozen. I planned to keep it all in the freezer until I was ready to use it but now, it seems, we need to eat it all this week since it's already defrosted. So instead of those chicken thighs, I opted for a couple of peppercorn-marinated steaks, but I needed a side dish. I pulled another binder off of my shelf and started sorting through side dishes, looking for something that I had all the ingredients for, and also that would go well with steak. I found it, when I happened upon Spaetzle Baked with Ham and Gruyere. I couldn't believe I had all the ingredients to make this - it looked delicious!

I set to work, bringing a pot of water to boil on the stove, pre-heating the oven to 375 degrees, and starting in on my spaetzle dough. Spaetzle is a small dumpling made by pushing dough through small holes into boiling water. There was a lot of spaetzle to be had in Germany, and we tried it sauteed, and boiled but this recipe calls for it to be baked, like a casserole, so I was intrigued! To make the dough, I mixed flour, salt and baking powder together by sifting it all together through a sieve. To this mixture, I added milk and two eggs. Once it was all mixed together, I let it stand for ten minutes.

Meanwhile, I gathered the rest of my ingredients. I diced some ham and white onion, I shredded some Gruyere cheese, and I also put together the mixture that would be poured over the spaetzle before baking (more milk, more eggs, salt, pepper and flour). 

Once the water was boiling, I placed my Spaetzle Maker over my pot and began to spoon the dough into the opening. It looks like a cheese grater, and has a mechanism that swipes the dough over the holes, pushing it into the water in little droplets. It's an extremely easy way to make spaetzle! If you don't have a spaetzle maker, and don't want to buy one just to try one recipe, you can use any sort of colander with larger-sized holes in it. A cheese grater would probably work as well, on the larger-holed setting. Once I had pushed all the dough into the water, I allowed it to cook for about 2-3 minutes before scooping them out into a colander to drain. Don't put them on paper towels - the spaetzle will stick!

Now it was time to put everything together! I browned the diced onion in a pan coated with cooking spray for about five minutes, and removed it from the heat before adding the ham and mixing it together. The spaetzle was then put into a two-quart baking dish, and mixed with the onions and ham to distribute everything evenly. I poured the milk mixture over the spaetzle and then sprinkled the grated gruyere cheese all over the top! See the before:

And the after:

After 35 minutes in the oven, the cheese became golden brown and crispy on top, and everything firmed up to make a delicious spaetzle "casserole." The flavors are really great, for such little seasoning throughout the cooking process. This dish went SO well with the steak, and was a really hearty dish. This one is definitely a keeper! Now, to type it up for my digital cookbook!

The original recipe can be found here.