Fresh Egg Noodles or Egg Dumplings
When I was growing up, my mother would make a huge pot of homemade chicken soup from scratch starting by boiling a whole chicken. Once the chicken, carrots, etc were cooked, she would add homemade egg dumplings.
This was one of my favorite dishes as a child, but it's also way too much food for just one to three people. You can feed the proverbial small army with it, which seemed to be true of a LOT of my mother's dishes.
So I never learned to make chicken soup from scratch starting with a whole chicken. I did, however, learn to make egg dumplings because they are delicious and easy to make.
Egg dumplings and homemade egg noodles are basically the same recipe: Eggs, salt, pepper, a little water and enough flour to achieve a somewhat stiff consistency.
My mother tended to not use measuring cups. She often started by dumping flour in a big bowl, hollowing it out to make a "bowl" in the middle and cracking multiple eggs into that.
As a child I found this baffling and once asked her about it and she said something like "It doesn't matter. The eggs will hold it together. If I use less flour, I will have long, skinny noodles. If I use more flour, I will have short, fat noodles. But either way it will be fine."
So one of the reasons I learned to make egg noodles (or egg dumplings) is because this is a low hassle, unfussy recipe where I don't have to measure things. I can make enough for just me to eat by cracking one or two eggs into a bowl, adding a little salt, pepper and water, mixing those together and then adding flour. I don't need to pull out measuring cups, etc.
If you are the sort to eat Ramen noodles dry as a snack, you can save the soup packet and use it instead of a bouillon cube as the starter for egg dumpling soup. Add vegetables and let it cook for a few minutes while you mix the dough for the dumplings, then use a metal soup spoon to drop spoonfuls of dough into the hot water.
You want to hold the spoon close to the boiling water so you aren't splashing hot water on anyone and you want to work quickly so the boiling water doesn't steam the dough onto the spoon too much. It can help to start by dipping the spoon into the broth so it's a little oily.
It takes a little practice, but this is the no special equipment means to do this. If you want to make egg noodles -- called spaetzle in German -- you will need a noodle maker of some sort.
I grew up watching my mother use an intimidating contraption to, again, make enough for a small army. They aren't cheap, they take substantial space to store, they are a giant pain to both use and clean and they only make sense if you are making a whole LOT of food.
So I have never owned one of that sort. Instead, I got a small, elegant device that was a joy to use to make just enough spaetzle for me.
Just make sure you CLEAN IT promptly while the noodles are boiling. Dried egg dough is a huge hassle to get off of a contraption with a lot of small holes and such.
When I was growing up, spaetzle was typically served with beef dishes that produced a lot of gravy, like German roulade or goulash, and were routinely topped with beef gravy. As an adult, I frequently made them by themselves as a light lunch for just me.
This was one of my favorite dishes as a child, but it's also way too much food for just one to three people. You can feed the proverbial small army with it, which seemed to be true of a LOT of my mother's dishes.
So I never learned to make chicken soup from scratch starting with a whole chicken. I did, however, learn to make egg dumplings because they are delicious and easy to make.
Egg dumplings and homemade egg noodles are basically the same recipe: Eggs, salt, pepper, a little water and enough flour to achieve a somewhat stiff consistency.
My mother tended to not use measuring cups. She often started by dumping flour in a big bowl, hollowing it out to make a "bowl" in the middle and cracking multiple eggs into that.
As a child I found this baffling and once asked her about it and she said something like "It doesn't matter. The eggs will hold it together. If I use less flour, I will have long, skinny noodles. If I use more flour, I will have short, fat noodles. But either way it will be fine."
So one of the reasons I learned to make egg noodles (or egg dumplings) is because this is a low hassle, unfussy recipe where I don't have to measure things. I can make enough for just me to eat by cracking one or two eggs into a bowl, adding a little salt, pepper and water, mixing those together and then adding flour. I don't need to pull out measuring cups, etc.
If you are the sort to eat Ramen noodles dry as a snack, you can save the soup packet and use it instead of a bouillon cube as the starter for egg dumpling soup. Add vegetables and let it cook for a few minutes while you mix the dough for the dumplings, then use a metal soup spoon to drop spoonfuls of dough into the hot water.
You want to hold the spoon close to the boiling water so you aren't splashing hot water on anyone and you want to work quickly so the boiling water doesn't steam the dough onto the spoon too much. It can help to start by dipping the spoon into the broth so it's a little oily.
It takes a little practice, but this is the no special equipment means to do this. If you want to make egg noodles -- called spaetzle in German -- you will need a noodle maker of some sort.
I grew up watching my mother use an intimidating contraption to, again, make enough for a small army. They aren't cheap, they take substantial space to store, they are a giant pain to both use and clean and they only make sense if you are making a whole LOT of food.
So I have never owned one of that sort. Instead, I got a small, elegant device that was a joy to use to make just enough spaetzle for me.
Just make sure you CLEAN IT promptly while the noodles are boiling. Dried egg dough is a huge hassle to get off of a contraption with a lot of small holes and such.
When I was growing up, spaetzle was typically served with beef dishes that produced a lot of gravy, like German roulade or goulash, and were routinely topped with beef gravy. As an adult, I frequently made them by themselves as a light lunch for just me.
