Italian Alpine Spinach Spatzle | Spatzle agli Spinaci
Spatzle are not pasta in the Italian sense and were never meant to be. There is no dough to roll, no resting under a cloth, no sheet to cut. There is a soft wet batter of flour, egg and milk, beaten hard until it strings from a spoon, then pushed through a perforated plate straight into boiling water where it sets into short ragged dumplings within a minute. The name comes from the Swabian word for little sparrow, a description of the shape rather than of any ingredient.
In Italy they belong to Alto Adige, the German speaking province where the Alpine and the Italian tables have sat side by side for a century, and where spinach spatzle are as common in a mountain refuge as tagliatelle are in Bologna. The spinach colours the batter and brings a quiet mineral note that stands up to browned butter and aged cheese. It is not there for health and it is not a garnish. Without it these are simply spatzle.
Yield: 4 generous first course servings or 6 smaller ones. Prep: 25 minutes. Rest: 30 minutes. Cook: 15 minutes. Total: about 1 hour 10 minutes. Difficulty: intermediate. Course: primo piatto. Region: Alto Adige and the Dolomite valleys.
The Story
Spatzle came into the Alps from Swabia, in the southwest of what is now Germany, where the dish is recorded from the eighteenth century and where a flour and egg mixture was a household staple in a region that grew a great deal of spelt and kept a great many hens. From there it spread along the German speaking Alpine arc into Austria, into Switzerland, and over the Brenner into the Tyrol. When the southern Tyrol became Italian territory after 1919 its food came with it, and spatzle have been cooked in Bolzano, the Val Pusteria and the Val Venosta ever since.
Spinach entered the recipe the way most vegetable additions did in mountain kitchens, as a way of making a flour dish go further and taste of something during a short growing season. The classic local version is tinted with cooked spinach and finished with cream, speck and chives, and it is still served in every rifugio above Ortisei and Corvara. The lighter treatment used here, browned butter with sage and grated cheese, is the one favoured at lower altitude, and it lets the spinach be tasted rather than buried.
Ingredients
For the spinach batter
Fresh spinach leaves, washed, thick stems removed, 10 oz (285 g)
All purpose flour, 2 cups (260 g)
Large eggs, 3, about 5 1/4 oz (150 g) without shells
Whole milk, 1/2 cup (120 ml), plus up to 2 tbsp (30 ml) more
Fine sea salt, 3/4 tsp (4.5 g)
Freshly grated nutmeg, 1/8 tsp (0.25 g)
Freshly ground black pepper, 1/4 tsp (0.6 g)
For the cooking water
Water, 5 quarts (4.7 L)
Coarse sea salt, 2 tbsp (30 g)
For the butter and sage finish
Unsalted butter, 6 tbsp (85 g)
Sage leaves, small, 8
Speck Alto Adige IGP, cut in thin strips, 2 oz (60 g), optional
Aged alpine cheese, Parmigiano Reggiano or aged Asiago, finely grated, 1/2 cup (45 g)
For finishing
Chives, finely sliced, 2 tbsp (8 g)
Freshly ground black pepper, to taste
Fine sea salt, to taste
Preparation
Wilt the spinach and squeeze it dry
Put the washed spinach into a wide pan over medium heat with only the water clinging to the leaves, cover, and cook 2 to 3 minutes until it collapses completely. Tip it into a colander, run cold water over it to fix the colour, gather it into a ball and squeeze hard, then squeeze again in a clean cloth. You want about 5 oz (140 g) of very dry compact spinach.
Blend the spinach into the liquid
Roughly chop the squeezed spinach and put it in a blender with the eggs, the 1/2 cup (120 ml) of milk, the salt, the nutmeg and the pepper. Blend for a full minute until completely smooth and an even deep green. Blending the spinach into the liquid rather than chopping it into the flour gives uniform colour and stops stray leaf from blocking the holes of the press.
Beat the batter until it strings
Put the flour in a bowl, make a well, pour in the green liquid and beat hard with a wooden spoon for 3 to 4 minutes. It will look lumpy and then suddenly turn smooth and glossy, and you keep beating past that point. You are deliberately developing gluten, because that structure holds the dumplings together in the water. It is ready when a lifted spoonful falls back in a thick slow ribbon.
Rest the batter and set up the pot
Cover the bowl and leave it at room temperature for 30 minutes so the flour hydrates fully and the gluten relaxes. Meanwhile bring the 5 quarts (4.7 L) of water to a full boil in a wide pot and add the coarse salt. The water needs to be genuinely salty, since the dumplings are seasoned only from inside and from the cheese at the end.
Adjust the hydration and test one spoonful
After the rest, if the batter has gone stiff enough to hold a peak, beat in the extra milk 1 tbsp (15 ml) at a time until the slow ribbon returns. Then test: push a small spoonful through the press into the boiling water. If the dumplings dissolve into cloudy shreds it is too loose and needs 1 tbsp (8 g) more flour. If they hold a hard nugget shape it is too tight and needs milk.
Press the spatzle in batches
Set the press over the pot and work in three or four batches, never more than a large spoonful at a time. Push the batter through steadily and scrape across the plate so the strands break into short irregular pieces rather than long worms. Crowding the pot drops the water temperature, so let it come back to a full boil between batches.
Cook them until they rise and then 30 seconds more
The spatzle sink, then float within about 60 to 90 seconds. Floating means the outside has set, not that they are cooked through, so give them a further 30 seconds at a steady boil before lifting them out with a spider. Drain briefly and reserve about 1/2 cup (120 ml) of the green tinted cooking water before you do anything else.
Brown the butter, crisp the sage and finish the pan
Melt the remaining butter in a wide saute pan over medium heat and let it foam, subside, and turn a clear hazelnut brown, about 3 to 4 minutes. Add the sage and the speck, if using, for 30 seconds only. Tip in the drained spatzle, toss, add 2 to 3 tbsp (30 to 45 ml) of the reserved cooking water and let it bubble so butter and starch pull together into a glossy coating. Off the heat, add half the cheese, toss once and serve.
Plating
Serve spatzle in warmed shallow bowls rather than on flat plates. They are small, they cool quickly because of their high surface area, and a rimmed bowl keeps them gathered and keeps the browned butter where it can be eaten with them instead of spreading into a film. Warm the bowls in a low oven while the batter rests. This is Alpine food and it is served hot.
Finish at the last second with the remaining grated cheese, the sliced chives and a grind of black pepper. The cheese should land on hot dumplings so it half melts and half stays powdery, which gives two textures in one mouthful, and the chives go on after it so they stay bright and raw. Send the bowls out at once: the coating holds for about 3 minutes before it sets and the dumplings begin to stick together.
Professional Technique
The technical heart of this dish is the deliberate development of gluten in a batter, which runs against almost every other instruction a cook receives about mixing flour. A spatzle batter has no shape of its own and is never rolled, so the only thing preventing it from dispersing in boiling water is the protein network built by beating. Three to four minutes with a wooden spoon takes the mixture through a visible change from lumpy to glossy, and a minute past that gives the elasticity that produces the slight chew at the edge of a finished dumpling.
The second is the control of water in the spinach, which governs everything downstream. Cooked spinach holds an enormous proportion of its weight as water, and 10 oz (285 g) of raw leaf properly wilted and squeezed twice should come down to around 5 oz (140 g). Squeeze it less and you add perhaps 2 fl oz (60 ml) of unmeasured liquid to a batter whose hydration is already fixed, which forces in more flour, which dilutes the green and stiffens the texture. Use a cloth, not hands alone, and blend the spinach with the eggs and milk so the total liquid is known before any flour is touched.
Texture and Moisture Control
A correct spatzle is tender all the way through with a slight resilience at the surface, and the two common failures sit on either side of that. Floury centers come from batter that has not rested, since dry flour particles that never fully hydrated stay chalky however long they boil. Slack mushy spatzle come from batter that is too wet, from water that has stopped boiling because the pot was crowded, or from cooking that runs past the point where the dumplings have risen. Thirty seconds after floating is the whole margin.
Moisture is managed in three places. In the spinach, where it is removed as completely as possible before anything else happens. In the batter, where the last 2 tbsp (30 ml) of milk are held back and added only after the rest, because flour absorbs measurably more liquid over 30 minutes and a batter judged before resting will always be too tight afterwards. And in the pan at the end, where the reserved cooking water corrects a coating that has gone greasy or tight. Add it 1 tbsp (15 ml) at a time and let it bubble, never off the heat.
Professional Mise en Place
Spatzle come together fast at the end but the batter needs a 30 minute rest in the middle, so the working order is spinach and batter first, everything else during the rest, then a service that takes under 10 minutes from the first press to the table.
Equipment and tools
Spatzle press, sliding hopper or a flat perforated plate, or a wet wooden board and a straight knife
Blender or immersion blender for the spinach and egg mixture
Wide pot holding at least 6 quarts (5.7 L) so the water returns to the boil quickly between batches
Prepared ahead
Spinach wilted, refreshed, squeezed twice and weighed, up to 1 day ahead and refrigerated
Batter blended, beaten and resting under cover, up to 2 hours ahead at cool room temperature
Cheese grated finely and divided into the portion for the pan and the portion for the bowls
Service setup
Salted water at a full rolling boil and a ladle ready to lift out the reserved cooking water
Bowls warming in a low oven from the moment the water goes on
Butter weighed into the saute pan, which stays cold until the last batch is out of the water
Chef Tips
If you do not own a spatzle press, a flat cheese grater turned upside down, a colander with wide holes or a potato ricer with the coarsest plate will all work, and the dumplings will simply be different shapes. That is entirely authentic, since every Alpine valley has its own tool. What does not work is a piping bag, which gives long uniform strands with no ragged edges to catch the butter.
Salt the cooking water as heavily as you would for pasta and taste it before you press. The batter carries only 3/4 tsp of salt in its whole volume and the dumplings absorb very little during 90 seconds in the pot, so under salted water gives bland spatzle that you will then be tempted to over correct with cheese.
Use a pale coloured pan for the browned butter, never dark nonstick or blackened cast iron. The only reliable way to catch beurre noisette is to watch the milk solids turn from cream to hazelnut against the metal, and you cannot see that in a dark pan. If the butter smells sharp rather than nutty it has gone too far: throw it out and start again, because burnt butter cannot be rescued.
For the classic Alto Adige version, replace the browned butter with 2/3 cup (160 ml) of heavy cream reduced by a third with the speck, fold the spatzle through it and finish with chives. It is heavier and it is what most rifugi serve. Do not attempt both at once, because cream and browned butter together make a muddled sauce that tastes of neither.
Common Mistakes
Failing to squeeze the spinach properly. Wet spinach adds unmeasured liquid to a batter with fixed hydration, and the only fix is more flour, which dulls the green and gives dense chalky dumplings. Squeeze by hand, squeeze again in a cloth, and weigh the result before you blend it.
Mixing the batter gently. This is one of the rare cases where gluten is the objective. A batter stirred just until combined has no structure and disperses into cloudy shreds. Beat hard for 3 to 4 minutes, until a lifted spoonful falls in a slow ribbon that hangs before it breaks.
Skipping the 30 minute rest. Flour needs time to hydrate fully, and batter used straight away gives spatzle with a chalky floury center however long they boil. The rest also relaxes the gluten so the batter passes cleanly through the press instead of fighting it.
Pressing too much batter at once. A crowded pot loses its boil, and spatzle cooked below boiling go slack and waterlogged. Work in three or four batches and let the water return to a full boil each time, even though it feels slow.
Wine Pairing
Alto Adige DOC Pinot Nero: The province makes some of the finest Pinot Nero in Italy, particularly around Mazzon, and its mix of bright acidity, light tannin and red cherry fruit is close to ideal with browned butter. The acidity cuts the fat, the low tannin leaves the delicate spinach alone, and the earthy undergrowth note of a mature bottle picks up the sage directly.
Alto Adige Gewürztraminer DOC: From Termeno, the village that gave the grape its name, and best chosen in a fully dry version. Its lychee, rose and ginger aromatics and generous oily texture meet the nutmeg in the batter head on, while there is enough weight behind it to carry the butter.
Alto Adige Santa Maddalena DOC: The everyday red of Bolzano, made mainly from Schiava on the hills directly above the city, light in body, low in tannin and smelling of violets and almond. It is what a Tyrolean would put on the table with spatzle without a second thought, and it is right for a reason: it refreshes, it never overwhelms a vegetable dish, and served cool at 55 F (13 C) it handles the butter with no effort.
Alto Adige DOC Lagrein: The dark and serious red of the region, deeply coloured, with blackberry, bitter chocolate and a firm savoury finish. Reach for it when the dish includes speck and a generous amount of aged cheese, because it has the tannic structure a lighter Schiava lacks.
Trentino Marzemino DOC: From the Vallagarina just south of the provincial border, a dry red with soft tannin, dark plum fruit and a distinct violet perfume. It is the gentlest red listed here and the safest choice if the spatzle are served without speck, since it has enough acidity for the butter but not enough weight to flatten the spinach.
Storage & Reheating
Boiled spatzle keep far better than most fresh pasta, because they have no delicate filling and their structure is set by gluten rather than a thin sheet. Toss them with a teaspoon of butter, spread them in one layer on a tray until completely cold, then seal and refrigerate for up to 3 days. Never store them coated in browned butter, which solidifies into a waxy film. The raw batter also holds, covered, for up to 24 hours: beat it briefly and check the hydration before pressing, since it stiffens when cold.
To reheat, do not put them back in boiling water, which waterlogs them. Melt fresh butter in a wide pan over medium heat, add the cold spatzle in a single layer and warm them through for 2 to 3 minutes, tossing occasionally and adding 2 tbsp (30 ml) of water to create a little steam. They will brown slightly at the edges, which is not a defect and is how leftover spatzle are deliberately served in the Tyrol. Finish with fresh cheese and chives, both of which lose their character on reheating.
Nutrition
Per serving, based on 4 first course portions finished with butter, sage and cheese but without speck:
Calories: 540 kcal
Total Fat: 27 g
Saturated Fat: 15 g
Trans Fat: 0.6 g
Unsaturated Fat: 10 g
Cholesterol: 195 mg
Sodium: 690 mg
Total Carbohydrates: 52 g
Fiber: 4 g
Total Sugars: 3 g
Added Sugars: 0 g
Protein: 20 g
Lactose: 1.3 g
Principal micronutrients: folate, vitamin K, vitamin A, iron, calcium, magnesium, riboflavin
These figures are estimates. Most of the salt in the cooking water is discarded rather than eaten, and the totals rise by roughly 90 calories and 260 mg of sodium per serving if speck is included.
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