2 Next place the beef strips in the broth. Now let it simmer until the meat has softened. Remove the boiled meat.

3 Towards the last 40 minutes of cooking time, add soup vegetables and some salt. This should give you 1 ½ to 2 liters of beef broth as a result.

4 Now you can pour the stock though a cheesecloth or fine strainer into a pot. Reduce a portion of the stock by half (about 1/2 liters) for the potato salad.

5 Freeze the rest of the stock for later, you can always use the homemade beef stock for other dishes.

Tip: if you prepare the beef broth one day ahead, it saves you a lot of time on cooking day. If you do want to make everything on the cooking day, I recommend that you start the stock and prepare the potatoes for the potato salad before the Maultaschen.

6 The boiled beef can be used for another stew or enjoyed cold, thinly sliced prepared as beef salad or a sour beef dish. The possibilities are plenty.

7 Fill the ground meat into a large bowl. Heat the butterfat in a large skillet and fry the bacon and onion cubes together. Add the garlic and brown till it has a nice brown color. Then add the chopped parsley, briefly glaze and remove immediately from the fire.

8 Let the onion mixture cool and add it to the ground beef. Express all the milk from the cubed rolls and also add them to the ground meat. Now add the chopped spinach to the ground beef, season with salt, pepper from the mill and a pinch of nutmeg and knead everything with your hands. This will be the filling for the Maultaschen.

9 Form a small ball from the finished filling and boil it in boiling salt water for approx. 4 minutes. Taste the cooked filling.

10 Roll out the pasta dough and spread the filling over the entire surface keeping the edges clean. Brush the edges with a whisked egg, then fold in the top of the dough and carefully fold the dough with the filling, forming a loaf and lastly fold in the bottom of the dough. Now press the upper side slightly and slice the roll into individual, rolled Maultaschen.

11 If you prefer your Maultaschen closed at the edges, divide the filling in small scoops on the dough, folds the dough in half pressing the meat-free sides onto each other and then cutting the individual Maultaschen into portions.

12 Boil the Maultaschen in boiling salted water (approx. 4 minutes), then cool on a rack until further use.

For the glazed onions:

• 4 onions, peeled and sliced
• 2 tbsp of butter
• water or broth as needed

13 Glazed Onions

In a larger hot pan with plenty of butter, brown the onion slices lightly, reduce the heat and remove them. This may take a little longer, therefore always add some broth or water, so that the onion slices do not burn, but in the end all the water should be evaporated.

14 Potato salad

Ingredients for potato salad:

• 1 1/2 kg of your favorite hard boiling potato variety
• salt
• vinegar
• if desired, some mustard
• onion, peeled and cut into small cubes
• high quality sunflower oil
• 1/2 l beef broth, reduced by half
• freshly ground Pepper
• chives, cut into thin rolls

Boil the unpeeled potatoes in a pot, then drain the water and allow them to cool. Next peel them and cut them in thin slices.

15 Then add the onion cubes, plenty of sunflower oil, vinegar and some mustard, and a little of the reduced beef broth to the sliced potatoes. Pepper to taste, and then let the salad rest a little time (preferably 1-2 hours). If necessary, add beef broth, oil, vinegar, or salt and pepper. Place the chives on top of the potato salad.

16 When everything is ready, heat the Maultaschen in salt water and serve with the warm Potato salad and glazed onions.

Enjoy your swabian meal!

Herrgottsbscheißerle – The History of Maultaschen

There are many legends about how the Maultaschen were created, but this one is really the most endearing one to me. This legend tells that the monks of the Maulbronn Abby (hence the name Maultaschen) tried to hide their meat from God during the time of fasting. They thought the good Lord would not see them eating the meat if they wrapped it in little dough pouches. Therefore, the Swabian people started calling the Maultaschen „Herrgottsbscheißerle“ – Goodlordfools.

It makes it quite fitting for the Maultaschen soup to be a traditional meal for Swabian families on Maundy Thursday. Another popular belief is that the Maultaschen are just the Swabian version or copy of the much more well-known
Italian filled pasta like Ravioli or Tortellini.

Today Maultaschen are popular all over Germany. Maultaschen used to be considered a pauper dish here in Germany since you could use all your leftovers and create a whole new dish.