Nachtmarkt food....

Ahh, the food at the nachtmarkt. There's no mystery as to where those extra kilos came from but it was worth every bite. Sadly, nachmarkts around Europe are about to finish for the year and I'm sure there will be many lamenting the disappearance of the fried pastries, roasted raclette served over boiled potatoes, spaetzle, roasted chestnuts, spicy sweet traditional biscuits and gingerbread-like creations.

The top photo is a pizza-like pastry that's apparently German in origin. Once your order is placed, the stall owner flattens out the dough and places on the toppings you have chosen. It then goes into the wood fired oven. Just before it is served a 'sauce' is spooned over the top [seemingly a garlicky herb oil].

The next is langos [pronounced 'langosh'], a fried pastry made from a potato dough and hails from Hungary. It was served as a sweet or a savoury pastry. Delicious. My favourite option was the one featured in this photo: sour cream, garlic, cheese and salt. Keen to try making your own? Have a look at this recipe: http://homepage.interaccess.com/~june4/langospotatocakes.html

Last but not least is spaetzle which is, in my opinion, somewhat addictive. It's an egg noodle/dumpling which is considered to be a "Swabian specialty". Konstanz is a part of the medieval territory of Swabia, however spaetzle is found throughout Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Hungary, Slovakia and the Alsace region of France. On this particular day, I ordered spinach spaetzle with mushrooms and Dr H couldn't resist the sauerkraut/speck version.

I'll post my spaetzle recipe, with photos, soon. So get your spaetzle maker, or even your colander, so that you're ready to go. How can you resist?