Alpine Käsespätzle with Gruyère and Caramelized Onions

Kasespatzle is what Germany and Austria make instead of macaroni cheese, and it is the better idea. Craggy little egg noodles, scraped fresh into boiling water, get layered with two alpine cheeses until everything turns molten and stringy, then buried under a heap of onions cooked down to deep amber. It is vegetarian, it is unapologetic, and it comes together in about 45 minutes.

Do not skip the resting time on the batter, and do not rush the onions. Ten minutes of rest lets the flour hydrate so the spatzle come out tender rather than rubbery, and the onions need a slow twenty minutes to turn genuinely sweet. If you have no spatzle maker, a colander with wide holes and a rubber spatula works exactly as well.

Step-by-step instructions

Whisk the flour, eggs, milk, nutmeg and a big pinch of salt into a thick, glossy batter, beating hard until it falls from the spoon in slow ribbons. Let it rest for 10 minutes while you start the onions.

Melt half the butter in a wide skillet and cook the sliced onions over medium-low heat, stirring now and then, until they collapse into a deep amber tangle. This takes a patient 20 minutes and it is the whole soul of the dish.

Press the batter through a spatzle maker or the holes of a colander straight into a pot of boiling salted water. The little noodles bob to the surface in about two minutes, then lift them out with a slotted spoon.

Wipe out the skillet, melt the rest of the butter and build alternating layers of hot spatzle and the two grated cheeses, seasoning each layer with black pepper.

Cover and set over low heat for 3 to 4 minutes until the cheese turns molten and stringy, then pile the caramelized onions over the top and shower with chopped chives.

Serve it straight from the skillet while the cheese is still stretching, with a sharp green salad and something pickled on the side to cut the richness. Leftovers fry up beautifully in butter the next morning, crisped at the edges with a fried egg on top.