A taste of Switzerland

We travel to Switzerland often and learned very quickly from our friend Peter that ordering fondue in Summer was a total embarrassment to any poor Swiss person stuck with that particular tourist! :)) So now, as much as we love it, we only eat it in Winter, so as Winter drags on I thought I'd reminisce.


We've also been treated to another cheesy favourite - Raclette. The dog is not a prerequisite, but the Raclette machine, little cheese-holder thingies, potatoes and veggies to have with the melted cheese definitely are! Our hosts even made us try it with banana.


This was a lunch-time hit with Phil and his brother. It's a plate full of ham variants, usually served with cheese and gherkins. We ate this in a beautiful skiing village after a long drive up into the Alps, - everything tastes good in that environment!



This dish is apparently quite popular - rösti or pasta with meat and sauce. It is very delicious and warm-and-toasty, especially when served with Späetzli - a yummy pasta that our friends introduced us to - we loved it so much they ended up giving us their Späetzli-maker, with the recipe imprinted upon it...

Ingredients:

250g flour
2 eggs
About 1/2 cup of water
1 tsp salt

Method:

Sift flour and salt, add eggs and enough water to form a thick paste that drops off a spoon and is thick enough to be rolled and "shaved" with a knife or forced through a colander. Do this, and add one layer at a time of the mixture into a boiling pot of salted water. Cook for 3 or 4 minutes and remove with a slotted spoon to drain. You can serve it like this but we like it fried briefly with butter to crisp the edges. (I'm basing this recipe on our Späetzli-maker, so you may need to play with it a bit, I haven't tried it without the maker).