In this tutorial I'm going to show you how to make a variation of typical German Maultaschen.

First of all: What are "Maultaschen"?
Maultaschen are a local dish in the south western part of Germany. Originally these are pasta-bags filled with a mixture of minced meat, smoked meat, spinach, bread crumbs and onions, flavoured with different herbes and spices.
But why doing it so complicated and not just eat meat an noodles. One legend tells that some clever monks wanted to hide the meat from god, by concealing it under pasta dough, so that they could eat it during the fasting period. Even nowadays, Maultaschen are a traditional dish on holy thursday in the south western part of Germany.

For more information take a look at the wikipedia article.

Even outside of the fasting period they're one of my favourite dishes, so I thought of varying them with bacon and a different filling.

Step 1: What You Need

For the noodle dough:

flour            200g
eggs           2
water          2 Tbspn.
salt             a pinch
bacon         150g

For the filling:

an old bun
minced meat             250 g
milk                           100 ml
white mushrooms      7-9 great ones
onions                       1 medium
spices and herbes     salt, pepper, paprika, parsley and basil

Step 2: The Dough

Pour some oil into a pan and an sear the bacon until it is really crispy. Let it cool down.

Sieve the flour into a bowl and form a recess with your fingers, big enough to fit the eggs and the water in. Mix the ingredients from the inside to the outside. When all ingredients are mixed knead the dough until you get a plain mass.

You can use a mixer, then you will need the dough hooks and beat the dough at the lowest level of your mixer. As a tip: For the finishing kneat the dough with your hands, then it will get plainer.

Now add the crispy bacon and kneat it again until you get a homogeneous mass.

For the time being put it aside and cover it with a moist dishcloth to prevent it of drying-out.

Step 3: The Filling

Break your old bun into small pieces, put them into a bowl, add the milk and let it rest until it is soaked.
Tips here: It works better if you heat the milk a little bit until it is lukewarm. If your mixture gets too moist add breadcrumbs to get the right consistency.

Cut the white mushrooms and the onion into very small pieces and add them to the mass, together with the minced meat. Add the spices and the herbes to season to taste and kneat everything until you get a homogeneous mass.
Tips here: Kneat it with your hand, then you have a feeling when all the ingredients are evenly spread.

Step 4: The Filling and Cooking

Divide your dough into three parts and roll each of it either on a non sticky pad, or on your countertop scattered with some flour. Roll it until it has a height of about 1-2 mm.
Cut it into squares and put a tablespoon of your filling on every second square. Take the free squares and put it over the ones with the filling. Squeeze the edges of the both dough layers together in order to get stuffed bags. Be careful: None of the filling should be able to escape during the cooking!
Now put your bags into hot boiling, salted water and let them cook for about 10 minutes.

After cooking you have edible Maultaschen at this point. They're very tasty with some chicken broth as a fast meal.

Step 5: The Frying - Get Them Even More Delicious

In order to get a crispy crust, fry the Maultaschen in a pan from both side with a little bit of oil.
This is my preferred way to eat them

For serving you can try different variations, for example this time I made a tomato sauce, flavoured with some Italian herbes like basil and oregano. An other idea would be a mushroom-cream-sauce. If you don't like a sauce, it's also perfectly served with scrambled eggs.
Or whatever you like.

Enjoy your meal!