Oktoberfest

Oktoberfest may conjure up images of free flowing beer, but there's plenty of German cuisine available at this yearly 2 1/2 week Munich folk festival. One of the dishes, spaetzle, is a specialty of the region.

I wasn't familiar with spaetzle until Simon, the wonderful young man I wrote about in January, asked me to fix it with schnitzel.  I looked in the German cookbook he'd given me and learned that spaetzle is a pasta made from flour, eggs, water and salt.  The resulting dough is too soft to roll out and cut so it's pressed through a spaetzle maker.  The recipe intimidated me for two reasons.  One, I'd never made pasta and two, I didn't have a spaetzle maker.  I was relieved when Simon told me dried spaetzle was sold at the grocery in Germany.  Since we live near several international markets, we decided to go on a spaetzle search.

The market we went to was huge and had products arranged by country. We found several brands of spaetzle and bought the one Simon recognized from Germany.  This solved the problem of making spaetzle. However, what was I supposed to do with the dried spaetzle?

Simon's grandmother, Oma, told me to cook the spaetzle in a large pot of boiling salted water, drain it and add butter to keep the noodles from sticking together.  Spaetzle can be served with just butter, but it's tastier with a couple of easy additions.

It's common in Germany to stir Emmental cheese into the hot spaetzle until the cheese melts.  That sounded easy enough, but it ended up being the hardest part of the whole recipe!  I bought two different brands of Emmental, but neither one of them tasted anything like the cheese Simon ate in Germany.  My son suggested we try Mozzarella, but it made a sticky mess!  On my fifth attempt, I added some Swiss cheese.  When Simon said the spaetzle tasted almost as good as what he ate in Germany, I knew I'd found the right cheese.

Spaetzle with cheese

While the butter and cheese are stirred into the spaetzle, the final addition, also common in Germany, goes on top.  Diced onions are cooked in olive oil until brown and sprinkled on the spaetzle.  I've eaten spaetzle with and without onions and I highly recommend adding them.

Spaetzle with onions served at a Munich

biergarten I visited this summer

A few months after my first attempt at cooking spaetzle, Simon's grandmother showed me how to make homemade spaetzle and gave me a spaetzle maker.  Until I get the courage to make spaetzle from scratch, I'll continue to used dried spaetzle.  And when I do, I'll think about the young man who introduced us to this wonderful dish and look forward to the next time he's sitting around the table with us.

Simon's Spaetzle

4 to 6 Servings

1 (17.6 oz.) pkg. dried spaetzle

2 Tbsp. butter or margarine

2 cups finely shredded Swiss cheese

1 large onion, diced

olive oil (enough to coat saute pan)

Cook spaetzle according to package directions.  While spaetzle is cooking, cook the onion in olive oil on medium to medium-low heat until brown. Drain spaetzle and put it in a bowl; add butter or margarine and stir until melted. Add cheese; stir until melted.  Top spaetzle with onion and serve.    

© Margaret's Morsels

A Taste of Germany

At the beginning of the year, I always like to share a healthier alternative for a traditional food.  Over the last few years, I've shared recipes for salmon patties; broccoli; pork chops; Mozzarella cheese sticks.  I want to share a recipe this January too, but we're going to have to take a little detour.

During the 2014-15 school year, my family hosted a foreign exchange student from Germany named Simon.  We enjoyed getting to know this fine young man and learning about his country's customs and culture.  In exchange, he was able to experience life in an American family, attend an American high school and try American food.  He was a good sport about trying and eating new foods, but after a few months he started missing the food from home.  When he arrived, he'd given me a German cookbook as a present.  At the time, I had him mark the recipes he liked with sticky notes and told him at some point during his stay I'd fix a German meal. When that day arrived, the first thing he wanted me to fix was schnitzel.

Schnitzel -- a thin slice of meat dipped in eggs, coated with bread crumbs and fried -- is the German equivalent of American chicken fried steak or country fried steak.  Although I'd never eaten German food before, I had heard of wiener schnitzel which is made with veal, a meat we don't eat. Simon told me schnitzel could be made with other meats, including pork which is what his family used.

Not long after that, Simon helped me interpret the recipe in the cookbook, putting it together with the way he remembered his grandmother fixing schnitzel.  We coated boneless pork chops in flour, dipped them in eggs and then coated them in plain bread crumbs.  Staying true to the recipe, we fried -- not my preferred cooking method -- the pork chops in canola oil. Unfortunately, they didn't taste like the schnitzel he ate in Germany, but like pork chops cooked in an American home.

A few weeks later, I decided to surprise Simon with schnitzel, but I changed a couple of things.  Instead of using pork chops, I sliced a pork tenderloin into pieces and pounded them flat.

I coated the pieces with flour, dipped them in eggs and coated them with bread crumbs, just like I did the first time.  Instead of frying them, though, I baked them in the oven.  Simon said the schnitzel was much better than my first attempt, but it needed more seasoning.  He looked through my spice rack, smelling some of the spices, until he found what he was looking for: garlic powder and Italian seasoning.  When he showed me those spices, I knew exactly how I was going to make the schnitzel.

One cold winter night, Simon burst through the kitchen door, stopped and exclaimed, "It smells good in here!"  What he smelled was my American version of schnitzel.  Since he liked the schnitzel made with pork tenderloin, I used it again, but decided to coat it with the same ingredients I use when I make Chicken Parmesan.  I omitted the flour completely and dipped the pork in eggs and then a mixture of Italian bread crumbs, Parmesan cheese, Italian seasoning and garlic powder before baking it in the oven.  Simon loved it and ate with gusto that night!

I don't know if my version could really be called schnitzel since some of the ingredients and the baking method are different.  Regardless of what you'd call it, two things are certain.  One, it's delicious.  Two, it's a healthy entree since it's baked not fried.

I look forward to trying German cuisine -- including schnitzel -- when we go to Germany later this year.  The thing I look forward to the most, though, is seeing Simon again.  I can't wait to see how much he's grown and give him something he hasn't had since he left last June:  a hug from his American mother!

Update:  After this was posted, Simon texted me and said he didn't mind me using his name in the article.  I've revised the copy, replacing "our student" with "Simon."  I also included his name in the recipe title.  The rest of the entry remains unchanged.

Simon's Schnitzel

6 to 8 Servings

1 (1 1/4 lb.) pork tenderloin, cut into eight pieces and pounded 1/4-inch thick

3 eggs, beaten
1 cup dry Italian bread crumbs
1/3 cup grated Parmesan cheese
2 1/4 tsp. Italian seasoning
1 1/2 tsp. garlic powder

Beat the eggs in a bowl; set aside.  In another bowl, combine the bread crumbs, Parmesan cheese, Italian seasoning and garlic powder.  Dip each piece of meat in the eggs and then coat both sides thoroughly with the bread crumb mixture.  Place meat on a greased cookie sheet.  Bake at 375° for 10 minutes.  Turn meat over; bake 12 minutes more, or until thoroughly cooked. 

© Margaret's Morsels

Cookie Exchange

Each December, I'm invited to a cookie exchange hosted by a friend.  The idea is to make cookies and bring some to sample and the rest to exchange with the other attendees.  I thought it would be fun to have an online cookie exchange.  We can't exchange the cookies, but we can exchange the recipes!

The recipe I'm sharing is the one my mother made every year at Christmas.  After she died, I decided to carry on the tradition and make the cookies with my son.  My mother used regular sized cookie cutters, but I prefer miniature cookie cutters instead.  I'm not sure how many cookies you get with the regular cookie cutters, but you get several dozen with the miniature cookie cutters.  The miniature cookies cook faster so you'll need to reduce the amount of cooking time.  When I roll cookie dough, I dust my work surface with powdered sugar rather than flour.  If you use too much flour when you roll out the dough, the cookies will be dry.  Powdered sugar keeps the cookies from drying out plus it adds an extra touch of sweetness.  If you're making chocolate cookies, you can do the same thing with cocoa.  I'm sharing my recipe below.  Please share one of yours!

German Christmas Cookies

3 cups all-purpose flour

1 1/2 cup sugar

1 tsp. cream of tartar

1 tsp. baking soda

1/8 tsp. salt

1/2 tsp. nutmeg

1 cup shortening

3 eggs, beaten

1 1/2 tsp. vanilla

Combine flour, sugar, cream of tartar, baking soda, salt and nutmeg; cut in shortening until mixture resembles coarse meal.  Add eggs and vanilla, mixing well.  Wrap dough in plastic wrap and chill in the refrigerator.

Roll dough to 1/8-inch thickness on a lightly floured surface; cut with cookie cutters.  Bake at 400° for 6 to 8 minutes or until lightly browned. Cool completely and spread with icing.

Icing:

3 cups sifted powdered sugar

2 Tbsp. light corn syrup

2 to 3 Tbsp. milk

1 tsp. vanilla

assorted liquid food coloring

Stir together sugar and corn syrup; stir in milk and vanilla to desired spreading consistency.  Divide into several small bowls; stir drops of a different food coloring into each.  Decorate cookies as desired.  When the icing dries, store cookies in an airtight container.

© Margaret's Morsels