Inspired by the sight of the Hairy Bikers devouring this in a hut in Austria, we hunted down some recipes on the internet and came up with the Penguin version, which tends to be known as “spaetzle”, possibly because this name is more evocative of deliciousness than the Austrian “kasknocken” which we first heard about.
300g plain flour
2 eggs
125ml water
125ml milk
70g butter
250g or as much as you think of cheese
1 onion
1 clove garlic
3 rashers of bacon (optional)
2-3 carrots
Mix the flour, eggs and liquid to form a batter.
Scrape the batter through a colander into a pan of simmering water and cook for about 3 minutes or until cooked. Do this is 2 or 3 goes, to avoid the spaetzle all sticking together. Strain out and drain.
Melt the butter in a pan. Add the dumplings, season with salt, pepper and herbes de Provence, and stir in the cheese.
In a separate pan, fry the onion and garlic until soft and golden, adding the bacon.
Mix the onion, etc. into the dumplings. Add chopped cooked carrot and leave to brown on the bottom of the pan. This is a vital stage – the browned bit is the best part. It even has a special name in Austrian: “Prinzn”!