Bohemian Chicken with Spazel. Oy!

Today I searched through this mega-cookbook to find the perfect recipe for dinner tonight. Something that was not too complicated and fairly quick to make. I settled on Bohemian Chicken with Spazel. It sounded good enough and was straight forward in the directions. At least until I went to start cooking it.

The first thing I cheated on was using my food processor. The recipe asked for the onion, pepper and garlic to be finely chopped. I started chopping it by hand and then said no~Food Processor.
Then I noticed that the recipe asked for paprika, but no where in the recipe did it tell when to add it, or for that matter ever talk about it again. It was only listed as an ingredient. Hmph. I sprinkled some on the chicken and added it to the broth. A little paprika never hurt anyone. I got the chicken and vegetables simmering on the stove and set out to make the spaetzle, something I have never cooked before. Although I DID watch Tyler Florence make it once on his show.

The spaetzle was a catastrophe. The recipe called for mixing 3 eggs with 4 1/2 Tablespoons of flour and some salt. When I read that I scratched my head thinking there was way too much liquid for that amount of flour, but decided to follow the recipe. What I got was a slithering mess of floury egg. I ran upstairs and kicked dear hubby off the computer and quickly googled spaetzle. Up came guess who? Tyler Florence. Eghads. His recipe called for 2 eggs to 1 cup flour and some milk. What to do? I went down and added more flour until it formed a lump. Truly a lump. The recipe in the mother book said to cut it into 1 inch pieces and so I did. Here is the result.

The recipe also called for boiling it in water. I still had chicken stock left over so I boiled it in that. Meanwhile I cooked up some nice brown butter. What doesn't taste good in brown butter?

Right?

These spaetzle were like miniature hockey pucks. They could be used as weapons. I was still not ready to give up on them though, so I chopped up some garlic and added it to the brown butter and the spaetzle. What doesn't taste good in brown butter and garlic? Eh-ummm. Right.

By this time I almost convinced myself they were, "not that bad". All that butter and garlic had to be good for something. I called for hubby and told him, "Vintage dinner is ready". What a good sport. He chuckled as I stood photographing this creation and said it looked good! Wow and thanks. It DID look good. Don't you think? But was it good? Well on a scale of 1-10 I would give the chicken a 6. It was not horrible but it will not be made again by me. The sauce was tasty soaked up with some chibbata.

The spaetzle on the other hand were horrible and we joked about them all through dinner. Some day I will get a real recipe and try these again. OhTyler, I need you. All in all, the chicken was tender and delicious and we just won't talk about the spaetzle ever again. I do get a funny feeling though that this may be a source of laughs between us for many years.