Alright, not very French, but who’s French here? Pyrenean Mountain Girl comes first! Well that accounts for the lamb. I acquired the Spätzle via more Luxembourgian and Germanic influences. They are simple, delicious, nutritious & cheap to make.

      This Recipe made me two simple meals:

1. A full Spätzle meal: Spätzle with sautéed bacon with Parmensan
2. Spätzle as a side: Spätzle with pan fried lamb chop cut in from my local Turkish butcher.

So First things first, The Spätzle batter:
The Spätzle batter

      This is easy, Just take 1/2 cup whole wheat flour, 1/2 cup white unbleached flour. (You can use just white flour, but the whole wheat adds some texture that I like, as well as makes them healthier). Add an egg, and 1/4 of a cup of water. Add some Salt/Pepper/Nutmeg/Parsley to taste.
This is what the batter should look like
      Make sure the dough is soupy like a thick pancake batter, rather than a doughy pasta batter. While you’re making your dough, throw a pot of water on your stove and get it boiling the way you would cook pasta.

      Once the water is boiling, dump small amounts of dough into the boiling water with a spoon.

      You’ll know that the spätzle are done when they float to the top. The next step is to sauté some bacon and onions in a pan.

      Once the Onions and Bacon are nice and gold, like above, return the drained spätzle to the pan. Mix them in and add a little water. The water loosens up all stuck juices at the bottom of the pan, returning taste that would otherwise be lost to the pan.

      Serve with fresh Parmesan cheese grated generously, and some fresh ground pepper.

      The Best was 2 days later- I pan-fried some lamb chops in my cast-iron pan, and afterwards, I reheated the left-over Spätzle in the same pan. It was even better than the first time around. Sometimes leftovers can be even better than the first time.

      I complemented it with my favorite –and famous– simple green salad. I recently featured it in the Voilà Nicole television pilot. Check it out here:

Our dish

I peppered and lightly salted both sides of the chicken and coated the pan with some olive oil. I let the pan get nice and hot before putting in my chicken. I let the skin of the chicken get just barely golden before removing the chicken.

The mix of veggies

I put the chicken on a plate, and sautéed 3 slices of bacon, 1 small onion, 1 carrot, 1 small turnip, 4 green onions, 1 russet potato. This isn’t a specific recipe, it’s just what vegetables I had leftover in my fridge. You can add what you have in your fridge: celery parsnips, cabbage, even a few olives wouldn’t be a bad idea. I topped it off with a glass of white wine.

I then returned the chicken top of the veggies… so that the chicken juices can make our veggies delicious, and I put the pan in the oven.

The chicken in the oven

My oven has been preheated to 350º. I have a very convenient pan, I can remove the handle easily. Make sure that your pan can handle the oven before you start this dish, a tell-tale sign is a handle made of wood or plastic.

I covered with the lid and I let it be for 20/25 minutes. Afterwards, I removed the lid for the final five minutes of baking, to let the skin brown a bit (and get a little crispy).

My dinner with a little glass of wine.

Voilà!
Mon Petit Poulet aux Légumes is ready.
I fed myself two delicious dinners. This is one of those meals that’s even better as a leftover,as the potatoes will come a little apart and thicken the sauce with their starch.

Enjoy.
-Nicole