spätzle

Spätzle (), Spätzla or Spatzen, also called nokedli (), are a type of Central European egg pasta typically served as a side for meat dishes with sauce. Commonly associated with Swabia (hence Swabian spaetzle) and Alsace, it is also found in the cuisines of southern Germany and Austria, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Hungary, Vojvodina, Banat, Slovenia, Lorraine, Moselle, and South Tyrol. It may be served as a side dish or with other ingredients like cheese and onion as a main dish. Spätzle are egg-based pasta of an irregular form with a rough, porous surface. The glutinous dough is put directly into boiling water or steam and the form varies between thin and thick, elongated and short. Spätzle is cooked for the first time during the fabrication. The moist dough is either pressed through a perforated metal plate or it drips through this plate into the boiling water. Other ways to prepare Spätzle are more applicable for domestic use.

A similar round shape, simplified in production, is native to the pre-Alpine Allgäu regions of Bavarian Swabia and Baden-Württemberg as Knöpfle.