Mexicanized Swiss

You may remember that a few weeks ago, I wrote about my experience of making spätzle when I was in Switzerland.  Helen, the wife of my cousin Walter, gave me her spätzle maker to take home to Mexico.  It's simply a metal plate with a lot of holes.  You place it on top of a pot of boiling water.  You scrape the spätzle dough across the plate, and it falls through the holes into the water to create little dumplings.

This week I took my spätzle maker to Alejandro's family's house to make a Swiss dinner for them.  Rather than just making a side dish of spätzle, I made a main course of Käsespätzle.  After making the dumplings, I sauteed onions until they were caramelized.  I threw in the spätzle and then stirred in shredded Swiss cheese until it melted.  I had to use a package of generic "Swiss cheese" because I couldn't find any imported cheese at the supermarket.  To make it a more complete meal, I also threw in some shredded chicken breast.

Alejandro was familiar with spätzle, but for the rest of the family it was an entirely foreign experience.  I explained to them that it was sort of like pasta, since they wouldn't know what a dumpling is either.  (I checked with Google translate, and there is no word in Spanish for dumpling.  It gave a translation of "una bola de masa hervida"... a ball of boiled dough.)  Their first taste elicited exclamations of approval.  They really liked it, and they all had second helpings.  I have to admit that it was very tasty.

Alejandro's sister and nephew however "Mexicanized" the dish by putting salsa on it.  His nephew went so far as to put some in a tortilla.  Who would have imagined... a spätzle taco!  Even the family's two dogs have become spätzle fans.  I offered each of them a handful of plain spätzle, and they scarfed it down.  The next morning for breakfast Alejandro fried some of the leftover plain dumplings in butter with chopped onion.  I doubt if the Swiss or Germans have ever thought of spätzle as a breakfast food!

I will definitely have to make Käsespätzle again for the family.