Weird Austrian food – Eiernockerln

I guess it’s just fair that after poking fun (or at least amazed amusement and amused amazement) at Swedish food I should also take a shot at Austrian food, my home kitchen.
What do you get when you take an empire, let it span from Italy over several slavic states to Hungary, and let them all come together in one capital in the middle that speaks neither of those languages?
Interesting food, of course!
There’s only one hitch, and that is that I’m vegetarian and most Austrian food.. well.. isn’t. But oh well. I’m starting with one vegetarian comfort food that I just have to have sometimes.

Eiernockerln
Eiernockerln or “flour dumplings with egg” is a typical “leftover food” – the Nockerln, flour dumplings, are usually eaten with hungarian Goulash. I guess making a giant batch of them and warming them up with some egg when the goulash was eaten was a way of dealing with not having meat every day in those days. But in my family, it’s a great comfort food and we usually make the dumplings on purpose just to have them with egg!

How to make Nockerln:
For 2 persons (or one person that is very hungry):
1 egg
1/8liter milk
250g flour (that is what the recipe said, but I added more flour when mixing because the consistency was definitely not thick enough with just that)
A pinch of salt or two

Get a big pot of water with a pinch of salt in it boiling.
Meanwhile, put the flour in a bowl, make a depression in the middle and crack the egg into it. Pour the milk on top, add a pinch of salt and start mixing from the depression on out. Or be lazy, don’t care about depressions and use an electric mixer.
Add more flour if it seems too runny. I don’t have a mixer and the rule of thumb is that if your hands don’t hurt while mixing, the dough isn’t thick enough. :) It should be sticky, but get off the side of the bowl easy.
When the water is boiling, take half a spoonful of dough at a time from the bowl, and scrape it into the water with another spoon. It’s not a beauty contest – the dumplings don’t need to be pretty, but half a spoon is about the right size for them. Boil until all dumplings have risen to the top, then pour them out into a sieve or fish out the ones already done with a ladle if you want to be complicated.

Eat with your favourite Goulash or read on below:

Now we add the eggs!
In a big pan melt butter or heat some corn oil (any tasteless oil). Pour in the fresh, steaming Nockerln. In a bowl, mix 3-4 eggs with a pinch of salt and some freshly ground pepper. Pour over the Nockerln and fry, stirring occasionally.
(Now that’s a question of taste – some households serve the stuff with some eggs still runny. For myself, I’m a definite enemy of runny eggs. I fry them good and crispy all the way through.)
Serve on a plate with some sweet hungarian paprika powder, ground pepper and chives on top. The paprika powder is a must for me – my parents brought me that original Hungarian sweet paprika that you see in the bag in the picture from a spa in Hungary and it’s just phantastic! It’s not strong, but has an irresistible taste.
The best side for this is green salad with a vinaigrette, chives and maybe some onion.

My verdict to the dish above? Lovely, but just… not Mom’s!

Next I guess I should try making those things with cheese instead of eggs – that makes them Tyrolean kasnockerln!