Spätzle with Chestnut and Mushroom Ragout

Spätzle is the king of all home-made quick dishes: after you've got 3 liters of water boiling, it only takes one minute for you to have a plate full of these German noodles on your plate!

Traditionally, the batter consists of special spätzle flour, salt, water, and eggs, but this time, I wanted to try it 100% vegan.

Again, no weird substitutes needed: I just left the eggs out and used more water. Spätzle flour is not available in Finland, so I used Italian durum wheat flour instead. I couldn't really tell any difference - only that the durum flour is yellow, so even without eggs, the spätzle had exactly the same appearance.

Spätzle can be eaten with grated (vegan) cheese on top - that's the fastest option. But if you're not in a hurry, do try this delicious ragout! The idea for it comes from the Vegan Love Story, but I changed it quite a bit (the only ingredients in common being chestnuts, red wine, and onion). The ragout combines chestnuts with shiitake mushrooms, carrots, onion, a lot of garlic, and red wine, and the result was exquisite. It made me think of boeuf bourguignon...

This recipe should be enough for four hungry eaters!

This is what you need for the spätzle:

• 400g spätzle or durum flour


• 440ml water (a bit more or less, the quantity really depends on the flour you use)


• 1 tsp salt

And for the ragout:

• 1 medium-sized onion


• 2-3 garlic cloves


• 2 medium-sized carrots


• 200g shiitake mushrooms


• 200g canned chestnuts


• 200ml red wine


• 500ml vegetable broth


• 3 Tbsp tomato paste


• salt and pepper to taste


• a handful of chopped parsley

Begin with the ragout: chop the onions, crush the garlic, slice the carrots, and quarter the mushrooms. Heat 3 Tbsp olive oil in a heavy pan and sauté the onions first about 3-4 minutes, add the garlic and carrots, and sauté 3-4 minutes more. Then add the mushrooms, stir two more minutes, and add the chestnuts, wine, broth, salt, and pepper. Let boil over a medium heat partly covered until the carrots are tender. Add the tomato paste, stir, check the taste and add more salt if needed. Sprinkle generously with chopped parsley (or how about thyme?).

In the meantime, prepare the spätzle: Combine flour and salt in a baking bowl. Add the water - first a bit less, then gradually adding more if needed. Mix energetically with a wooden spoon until you have a smooth batter, almost like very dense pancake batter. The amount of water depends heavily on the type of flour you're using. Mine took 110ml water for each 100g of flour.

Bring 3L water to the boil in a big saucepan. Press the batter through a spätzle grater (spätzlehobel) into the boiling water. If you don't have one, try pressing the batter through the holes of a regular colander. The spätzle are done when they rise back to the surface, or in about one minute. Remove the cooked ones with a skimmer, and repeat until all of the spätzle is done.

Serve with the ragout!

P.S. I wasn't familiar with the etymology of the word ragout  - well, now I am! It comes from old French ragoûter, or to revive the taste. In this case, it's an appropriate name indeed  :)