Anna Kresh asks for some recipes, Bob Strauch replies:
Anna, I'm sending you recipes by mail, but in the meantime, I've translated a recipe from the Burgenland chapter of the book "Vom Essen auf dem Lande" by Franz Maier-Bruck, the absolute bible of Austrian country-, mountain-, and regional cooking.
(from Bob Strauch and Anna Kresh)
- 9 oz. noodle patches (Fleckerln)
- 9 oz. cottage cheese (dry curd or very well-drained)
- 3.5 oz. bacon, fried until golden
- 1/2 pint sour cream
- salt and pepper
Cook noodles in salted water, drain, and rinse with cold water and drain well. Grease a fireproof casserole and add a layer of noodles. Top with a layer of cottage cheese and season with salt and pepper. Add a layer of sour cream. Continue layers until all the ingredients are used up. Finally, top with the chopped bacon. Bake in the oven until the top is browned.
For Fleckerln, use regular egg noodles and break them into pieces before cooking.
If using regular cottage cheese, I'd wrap it in a clean kitchen cloth and wring as much liquid out as possible. Or use pot cheese or farmer's cheese (the curd variety). There's a brand called Friendship that we can get at the kosher delis in our local markets. But even that might need to be "de-moisturized" a little. Mahlzeit, Bob
(ED. Note: I never cared for these but everyone else just doted on them - better than American macaroni and cheese they say. I much preferred noodles with ground walnuts and sugar or ground poppy seed with sugar. These were more of a dessert. My grandmother always used home-made Fleckerln, cutting them into one inch squares. They were more substantial than egg noodles. She had a big wooden noodle board to form and cut them.)