Zacierki in milk: noodles rubbed from flour and egg between the fingers, in twenty minutes
Two ingredients and a pair of hands: flour and egg rubbed between the fingers into irregular pea-sized crumbs, dropped into hot milk. The milk soup many Polish children ate before school, before breakfast cereal became commonplace. The same crumbs also go into chicken broth or vegetable soup instead of pasta.
Your own work in that: 20 min.
- Rubbing the noodles 10 min
- Cooking in milk 10 min
Step by step
0 / 5 doneRub the flour with the egg
Put the flour in a bowl, make a well, crack in the egg and add a pinch of salt. Rub the egg into the flour with your fingers until you have irregular crumbs the size of a pea and smaller. It takes 5–7 minutes; a spoon will not give you the same result.
Ingredients: 150 g plain flour · 1 pcs egg · 1 pinch salt
TipIf the crumbs are too big and damp, add a spoon of flour and keep rubbing. If dry flour is left in the bottom, add a few drops of water. The noodles should feel dry, then they won't clump in the milk.
Fingers, not a spoon; crumbs like peasSieve off the loose flour
Tip the crumbs into a sieve and shake so the loose flour falls away. That flour, thrown in with them, would turn the milk into gruel.
A sieve, the loose flour shaken outBring the milk to the boil
Bring the milk with half the butter, the sugar and a pinch of salt to the boil in a heavy-based pot, stirring so it doesn't catch. Lower to a gentle simmer.
Ingredients: 1000 ml milk · 20 g butter · 2 tbsp sugar · 1 pinch salt · 1 pinch cinnamon
TipRinse the pot with cold water before pouring in the milk and don't dry it: on wet walls the milk sticks less and scorches less often.
Add the noodles and cook
Scatter the crumbs in slowly, by the handful, stirring all the time so they don't clump. Cook 5–6 minutes over low heat, stirring now and then, until the noodles are no longer raw inside and the soup has thickened slightly. It thickens further off the heat.
Slowly, by the handful, stirring throughoutServe
Ladle into bowls, top each with a knob of the remaining butter and, if you like, another teaspoon of sugar or a pinch of cinnamon. Eat at once: the noodles quickly soak up the milk and the soup keeps getting thicker.
Butter on top, eat immediately
Before you start
For broth
Drop the same crumbs into boiling chicken broth and cook 4 minutes instead of pasta. They also suit vegetable and tomato soup.
Made ahead
Spread a double batch of raw zacierki on a floured tray and freeze, then tip them into a bag. They keep up to 3 months in the freezer; cook them straight from frozen, a minute longer. Do not dry them for hours at room temperature: this is a raw-egg dough that stays moist for a long time. Until the next day they can wait in the fridge, spread out and covered.
Without egg
Rub the flour with 3–4 tablespoons of water instead of the egg. The noodles are paler and more delicate — this is the Lenten version.
