French Fridays with Dorie: Herb-Speckled Spätzle and Pork Schnitzel

I hope you had a wonderful holiday season and you're ready for 2013. I know I am! I'm starting off the year with an exciting 3-day jaunt to Yosemite for Chefs' Holidays at The Ahwahnee Hotel. I arrived yesterday and was welcomed into the park by a beautiful rainbow followed by a light dusting of fresh snow. I wandered around outside the hotel during sunset before the Meet the Chefs reception followed by dinner in the Grand Dining Room. I'm looking forward to today's chef demonstrations with Chef Douglas Keene (Cyrus, Healdsburg CA) and Victor Scargle (Lucy, Yountville CA) and tonight's dinner at Yosemite Lodge at the Falls.

Sunset - El Capitan

When I should have been finishing up my packing Saturday night, I was messing up the kitchen with this past week's French Fridays with Dorie recipe. I didn't find time to make this Herb-Speckled Spaetzle during the week and in time to post on Friday, but spaetzle is one of those side dishes you need to make, especially to go with Pork Schnitzel.

For Dorie's herb spaetzle, you can use whatever combination of chopped herbs you prefer. I used parsley, thyme and rosemary. Dorie also sautés the cooked spaetzle with chopped onion and sliced mushrooms, but I left those out this time. 

Herb-Speckled Spaetzle

The ultimate pairing - Spaetzle and Schnitzel

Dorie shared her spaetzle recipe with Epicurious, so you can find it here. I had to add about 1/4 cup more milk to the batter for the right consistency to press through the holes in my strainer. I used Tyler Florence's Pork Schnitzel recipe, here.

The only hard part about traveling is leaving Trapper behind. He hung out in the kitchen with me while I made dinner and I snapped a quick photo for all his Facebook fans. I'm sorry Trapper-boy, I'll take you to the snow some time soon.

Trapper, supervising the spaetzle action in the kitchen

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French Fridays with Dorie is an online cooking group, dedicated to Dorie Greenspan‘s Around My French Table: More Than 300 Recipes from My Home to Yours. As members of the group, we have purchased the cookbook and cook along as much as we can. There is a new recipe each week, and we post about that recipe on Friday. We are asked to refrain from posting the actual recipes on our blog. The book is filled with stunning photography, and personal stories about each recipe, which makes it that much more intriguing. I highly recommend adding it to your cookbook collection if you haven't already!