Spaetzle: a regional specialty that’s gone international.

Spaetzle have been well-known as a feature of Swabian cooking since the Middle Ages. However, they’re found in many areas outside Swabia too: and the derivation of the name ‘spaetzle’ has given rise to a variety of theories. One of these is that the cooks cut them up into small pieces from a lump of dough the size of ‘a sparrow (Spatz) in the hand’. Or maybe it comes from the Italian ‘spezzato’, which means something like ‘sliced up into pieces’. Spaetzle don’t have to be longitudinal: they are rounder in Baden, in the Allgau and in parts of Austria, and in Switzerland they’re called ‘Knoepfli’ (= little buttons). Whatever – the delicious mixture is minced, shaped or sliced into smaller pieces, put into boiling water and is ready in 2 minutes. We’ve got the right kitchen gadget for you in this catalogue whichever method you choose.
The dough is easy to make – just flour, eggs and a little salt and water, beaten up until the mixture begins to bubble. Spaetzle taste best freshly cooked.

A cleaning tip:

Always use cold water to clean equipment that’s come in contact with spaetzle dough. Don’t use the dishwasher! Hot water makes it stick to things and hard to remove.

The Spaetzle Grater. Specially produced for us with a metal grip.

Sonntag Metalware have been making these graters in upper Swabia since 1928. The original idea was taken over from the vegetable grater, and works according to much the same mechanical principle. The spaetzle dough mixture – with its thickish consistency – is slid backwards and forwards over the perforated metal sheet held above a pot of boiling water. The result is rather short, uniform pieces of spaetzle or ‘Knoepfle’ (= little buttons) which the Swiss like to use for ‘Kaesspaetzle’ (= cheese spaetzle).
The graters were originally made of tin, but nowadays only stainless steel is used, and Sonntag have produced a series exclusively for us with stainless steel grips instead of the normal plastic ones. The fact that the sliding batter basket is still plastic has its reasons: plastic slides over the grating sheet more smoothly and less of the mixture runs over the side.