Brown Butter Spaetzle With Prosciutto and Broccoli Rabe

Category: Main Dishes | Blog URL: http://www.fureyandthefeast.com/2010/02/brown-butter-spaetzle-with-prosciutto-and-broccoli-rabe/

This recipe was entered in The Foodista Best of Food Blogs Cookbook contest, a compilation of the world’s best food blogs which was published in Fall 2010.

Photo: Cynthia Furey

Ingredients

2 eggs

cup whole milk

1/4 cup parsley, minced

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/8 teaspoon pepper

cups all-purpose flour

cup butter

2 cloves garlic, minced

1/4 medium onion, minced

1/4 cup pine nuts

1 bunch broccoli rabe, chopped

1/4 pound sliced prosciutto, chopped

Garnish: Parmesan cheese, lemon juice

Preparation

Put a large pot of salted water on the stove and over high heat to boil.

In a large bowl, crack the eggs and add milk, parsley, salt and pepper and mix until combined. Add in flour a little bit at a time and mix until combined. The dough will be a bit runny, and this is just fine. Let sit for 10 minutes to rest.

Put a colander or cheese grater over the pot of boiling water and spoon dough through holes. You’ll have a bunch of wiggly noodle nuggets that drop into the pot. Cook these for 5 to 6 minutes until just tender. Drain.

Melt butter in a sauté pan over high heat. When butter starts to separate and brown, have your ingredients at the ready. You’ll know the butter is ready to go when you start smelling a sweet, nutty aroma.

Dump in the drained spaetzle, garlic, onion, pine nuts and broccoli rabe. Cook in browned butter for about 2 minutes, then remove from heat. Toss in prosciutto and top with a sprinkling of Parmesan cheese and lemon juice. Season with salt and pepper, to taste.

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About

I’m not gonna lie. This isn’t a gourmet dish that came about through many moons of research and testing. It was birthed when its parents, desperation and craving, met late one night in a refrigerator half-stocked with vegetables my mother has never heard of and more booze than I would ever care to tell her about. We all know that chance encounters sometimes don’t work out, but on that night, desperation and craving were at the right place at the right time. It was love at first sight.

Desperation wanted to use all of the ingredients in the kitchen that were on their last legs. Craving wanted nothing more than a giant bowl of wiggly spaetzle — the same spaetzle that caused a young culinary student (ahem) to hide in a corner of the kitchen storeroom while shoveling it into her mouth with her bare hands.

Together, desperation and craving created a meal with echoes of that curious day when three-quarters of the spaetzle mysteriously disappeared from the Culinary Arts 122 class. Only this time, there was broccoli rabe, prosciutto and toasted pine nuts to share the spotlight.