Maggie's Farm

Egg dumplings. Eggs, flour and a nice dose of salt mixed up to make a wet, sticky dough and dropped by the teaspoonful into a pot of boiling water. I mix it by sight so I'm not sure of the proportions, maybe 3/4 cup flour per egg. If it looks like pie crust dough, it's too dry, it should be wet. It's very sticky so swirl the spoon around in the boiling water to get the dough to release from the spoon. If you know anything about eggs, immediately wash the bowl out after dropping the dough in the water because if that stuff dries in the bowl you might as well throw out the bowl. By the time you've scrubbed the bowl out, the dumplings will be done, they only need 5 minutes or so to swell up and cook through. Fish them out with a slotted spoon, salt, pepper and butter is all you need. If you drain the pot lightly, there will be a broth with all the little bits and crumbs of dumpling left that you would stab your mother to get at, too. Add a little beef or chicken broth if you like. Yum!

My mother made these when we were kids, she called them kniffles (pronounced ka-niff'-leez) but nobody I know of had ever heard of them. Then the internet came along and I found out they're German spaetzle only cooked in a lump rather than squeezed through a spaetzle press to make a thin noodle, possibly because we didn't own a spaetzle press and possibly because they cook in a lump just as good as a noodle and who's got time for fancy noodling when you've got hungry kids?