Kasnocken

Kasnocken are soft spätzle dumplings tossed in a hot pan with melted mountain cheese and topped with crisp fried onions. It is Tyrol's cheese spätzle, a mountain dish built to be filling and cheap, using little more than flour, egg and whatever hard cheese the alpine dairies were making that season.

What it really is

A loose spätzle batter of flour, egg and water is dropped into boiling water in small, irregular pieces rather than shaped by hand, then drained. The still-warm dumplings go into a hot pan with grated alpine mountain cheese and are tossed continuously off the heat, so the cheese melts into a thin, clinging coat rather than seizing into a solid clump. A generous scattering of crisp fried onion goes over the top at the very end.

The cheese is added off the direct heat, not on it. A pan still on the flame drives the fat and protein apart, leaving a greasy pool instead of a smooth coating — the same reason a good fondue is stirred over gentle, not high, heat.

How it is served

• Straight from the pan, cheese still glossy and half-melted.
• Topped generously with fried onions, never served without them.
• With a green salad on the side, since the dish itself is rich enough without another heavy side.

How to write it on the menu

• Flag gluten, egg and dairy; the spätzle and the cheese carry all three.
• Name the cheese if it is a specific regional alpine variety, since guests who know the dish will ask.
• It is naturally vegetarian, a straightforward filling option among meat-heavy Tyrolean mains.