That’s it, that’s the question. I made pasta dough the other day, and now I want to make spaetzle from it. Will adding milk over-hydrate it, or will it work perfectly, because spaetzle dough is looser than pasta dough?
The interwebz say yes.
https://www.reddit.com/r/fromscratch/comments/zagog3/homemade_german_spaetzle/
I love Spätzle but have never made them. Are you using the one-use special gadget to make them?
Was it egg pasta? usually i have added an egg to make spaetzle.
should work though, as some sort of noodle.
in addition to the spaetzle maker and regular grater, there is another type of American spaetzle in Ohio and western Pennsylvania (maybe Pennsylvania Dutch / Amish/ Mennonite in source) that is rolled into cylinders and cut with a knife, a bit like cut gnocchi, but thinner. I had them once at a wedding banquet. I am not finding recipes for this method online.
The word itself means sparrows in dialect, so the uneven type made with a grater or spaetzle maker is closer to the original shape, than the cut type.
I guess there’s also this handcut type from Germany:
and am American handcut recipe:
…
One Pennsylvania Dutch type of quick egg noodle dumplings are called Rivels and they are pinched off rather than rolled or grated.
I know there’s milk in the dough, but the dough’s already done. I’ve made spaetzle before: you mix the egg and milk and then incorporate the flour. I don’t know whether changing the order will harm the finished product.
I use a potato ricer. Works good.
I think the noodle will be more dense than when you use the traditional approach.
This has been my experience when I have tried adding liquid late, (because I forgot to add it) to bread dough that has already been kneaded or mixed with egg or butter.
I think whatever air pockets were there are taken out when one mixes in more liquid, leading to a denser dough.
I say try. If at first you don’t succeed, try try again 
Hmm. There are no air pockets. This isn’t bread dough, it’s pasta dough. It doesn’t rise.
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Yeah, what’s the worst that can happen. I guess we’ll find out!
A tasty pasta experiment. Here for it 
I’ve never tried this but am curious how it goes if you do!
I will say from making a lot of pasta dough and bread dough . . . adding liquid to a fully formed dough is much harder than adding more flour to a wet dough. It just doesn’t absorb all that easily - makes a big mess if you try it by hand and can just spin around forever if you try it in a stand mixer. I do wonder (and have never tried) what would happen in a cuisinart processor.
I’d try it - why not live on the edge 
but tell us how it goes and how you tried to mix it in.
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I have a stand mixer and a food processor and a hand blender - let’s get everything dirty!
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Haha - it’s not fun if it doesn’t make a mess hahaha
Whatever you try, I’d recommend “dicing” your pasta dough into small pieced before adding the liquid, just to help with incorporation.
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I’m curious how this will turn out – hope you will report back. The Spätzle recipes I’m familiar with do not call for milk. I have had trouble with returning extruded pasta dough to my Philips machine to add more liquid. Too much gluten has formed and the dough seems compressed. I’m not sure if you will have more success this way. 
I may be the odd one out, but I’d save the pasta dough and just make a little (1-egg) spaetzle batter separately.
Trying to soften a stiff dough is a real pain, much easier the other way around. And spaetzle typically starts with a thick batter rather than a dough.
So maybe sticking the pasta dough in a processor or blender will get the batter texture, but there’s a higher probability of wasting perfectly good pasta dough.
This is my fear. But I think I’ll go for it anyway.
Crossing fingers for you
