Welcome to a new featured series on Mangia McCann: Top Chef Tuesdays! I’m a huge fan of the show and every Tuesday I’m going to come up with a challenge based upon the prior week’s episode. I will try and keep spoiler alerts to a minimum. Be sure to check out my Instagram TV page for associated video content.
Week 4 was a bit of a struggle for me. The first challenge involved the chefs upscaling Campbell’s canned products and the elimination challenge let the chefs frolic in a lovely orchard during fall in Oregon’s notorious Hood River Fruit Loop with some really amazing backdrops at guest judge dinner. Farmer’s markets are still getting their legs under them in the Mid-Atlantic region so I couldn’t run wild with ideas there either. However, Chef Sara Hauman made something that made me do a double take: spaetzle.
I haven’t had spaetzle in forever. I’ve really only had it as a child at Christmas dinner. It would be packaged along with green beans, bacon, onions and a lovely butter sauce. My brother and I would fight over who could finish off the bowl after everyone got their portion. It turns out, you can’t find this anywhere in grocery stores anymore. So, I tried my hand at making a memory.
This dish did not disappoint. After I took my first bite, I was transported back to being a child on Christmas. I FELT this dish HARD as the way I would be excited as a child on Christmas day. A whole bunch of memories raced through my mind and I almost started tearing up while shooting my Top Chef Tuesday segment. The spaetzle is a lovely, toothsome, salty egg noodle. The beans were crisp on the outside and tender on the inside (a product of blanching and not overcooking). The sauce was a nice blend of bacon fat, butter and olive oil and whatever water cooked off of the beans and spaetzle - with a kiss of garlic and green onion - topped off with smoky rendered bacon. I’m making more for dinner as soon as I get this blog posted...and you can too.
Spaetzle with Green Beans
Spaetzle
3.5 cups AP flour
2.5 tsp kosher salt
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
4 eggs
1 cup of water
Other
1.5 lbs green beans, blanched, drained, cut into thirds
4 slices of thick-cut bacon, minced and rendered
Medium onion
3 cloves garlic, minced
6 green onions, sliced thinly
~3 sticks of butter, at room temperature
Olive oil
Mix together the dry spaetzle ingredients in a large bowl and make a well. Whisk together the eggs and water and pour into the center of the dry ingredients. Stir the flour into the wet ingredients, until incorporated. Keep stirring for about 2 minutes until the dough becomes stretchy. Cover and set aside for about 2 hours.
Meanwhile, blanch your green beans. Render your bacon in a 12-inch skillet (keeping the bacon fat in the skillet). Drain and dry the beans and cut into thirds. Dice the onion and thinly slice the green onion and reserve all items separately.
When ready to cook the spaetzle, bring a large pot of water to a boil. Scoop some of the spaetzle dough into a potato ricer and squeeze over the pot. Wait for gravity or use a knife to cut the spaetzle from the ricer. Stir the spaetzle briefly to separate the pieces. When they float to the top, remove the spaetzle to a bowl of ice water and repeat these steps with the remaining dough.
Drain the spaetzle, shaking the colander to ensure all of the water is removed from the colander. Reserve.
Reheat the bacon fat in the skillet and sauté 1/3 of the onion. When softened, add 1 clove of minced garlic. After 30 seconds, toss in a third of the spaetzle, along with half a stick of butter and let it cook, undisturbed for a few minutes. Then stir in a third of the green beans and continue cooking for another 2-3 minutes, adding in small portions of the remaining stick of butter, as needed, along with a swirl of olive oil. Season with salt and pepper and toss in some bacon bits and sliced green onion.
Empty the cooked items onto a platter and repeat with the remaining ingredients in 2 more batches. Drizzle everything one last time with some olive oil before serving.
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