Austrian FoodBest Dishes And Austrian Recipes |
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You will love Austrian food if you like hearty, flavoursome, and sweet dishes. Here is a shortlist of my favourite local dishes, including links to Austrian recipes. Food of Austria mixes Central European produce, textures and flavours in a unique way. Most of these influences date back to more than six centuries of Habsburg Empire. Savoury Austrian food is primarily based on meat, poultry, root vegetables, dairy, and grains. Austrian desserts mostly work their magic using chocolate, soft cheese, yeast, compotes and jams. 
Clear Soups With Solid Ingredients
Austrians in general love to enrich clear soups with all sorts of solid ingredients, some of which differ by region. While cut carrots, parsnips, turnips, leeks and celeriac make for a good broth, it is the extras that count: Semolina balls, liver dumplings, bacon dumplings, strips of pancake, soup pearls, and egg puffs are the most popular add-ons. Other than soup pearls and egg puffs, which are best bought ready made, the other ingredients are quite easy to make and form part of every decent Austrian cook book. You will also find most of them in every decent Austrian restaurant. While these soups are based on beef broth, the Carinthian Klachelsuppe is made from pork leg and root vegetables. It gets its texture from a little flour whirled into the soup, and its flavour from onion slices, laurel, pepper, juniper berries and cloves. Bread Spreads
Austrian food is probably at its most creative when it comes to bread spreads. They are closely connected to Viennese, Lower Austrian, and Styrian wineries, which traditionally serve them. My personal favourite is Liptauer (derived from the Slovakian region of Liptau).It is based on creamy soft cheese with red pepper and herbs. Many Vienna wineries serve a mild and a spicy version. The more sophisticated variations include chopped pickled gherkins, onions and anchovies. Other popular bread spreads include the Styrian Verhackert's, based on finely chopped bacon, the Brat'lfettn, which is essentially cold gravy and pork fat (sounds awful but tastes nice!), and the horse radish spread, basically soft cheese with spicy horse radish. Fried, Breaded And Boiled Beef, Veal, Pork And PoultryOur lush pastures, large forests and mild climate have created a nation of beef and poultry eaters, generally speaking. Home grown fishes from our rivers and lakes are rare with Austrian food but do land on our plates every now and then. The closer we live to their habitats, the more regional fish specialities we have.
Wiener SchnitzelLearn all about our continuing love of breaded cutlets, how to prepare the best Wiener Schnitzel, and the the most popular varieties. Tafelspitz
Does boiled beef sound dull to you? It shouldn't. The Tafelspitz is one of the tastiest types of savoury Austrian food; and one of the easiest Austrian recipes for meat dishes. The name Tafelspitz refers to the pointed fine fibred piece of meat from the cow's back, just where the tail starts. The meat itself is lean, and has just a thin layer of fat on the upper part of the cut. A typical Austrian household or restaurant would serve the Tafelspitz in the broth it is boiled in, together with boiled carrots, leeks and turnips, and perhaps a slice of bone marrow. You would start off with the soup and vegetables. Then, you would have the beef as the main course, together with roast potatoes, cream spinach, horseradish cream and cream with chives. If your cholesterol levels allow, have the bone marrow lightly salted on a piece of toasted dark sourdough bread. Gulash
Gulash (or Goulash, in German: Gulasch) is the hearty and very versatile stew that we share with the Hungarians. Find out more about Gulash and how to prepare it. SchweinsbratenRoast pork (Schweinsbraten) is Eastern Austria's traditional Sunday lunch. The pork loin comes with a crunchy crust topped with cumin and is served with white sour cabbage (Sauerkraut) and bread dumplings. The Schweinsbraten is served with gravy, which can sometimes be thickened with flour. An original Viennese snack bar which serves partly long forgotten food of Austria: Pork specialities from the Austro-Hungarian crownlands around the North Italian town of Triest is Porcus. Backhendl, Paprikahendl
The same way we coat meat cutlets in flour, eggs and breadcrumbs, we do whole breaded chickens (Backhendl). They are a staple Austrian food in taverns and again the wineries of Eastern Austria. In the past few decades, the Styrians have successfully added a new dish to typical Austrian food: Green leafy salad tossed with Styrian pumpkin seed oil, and topped with stripes of warm breaded chicken, a must! Paprikahendl is roast chicken with sweet red pepper, and reached Austria from Hungaria via the Eastern Austrian region of Burgenland. We usually have it with German Spaetzle pasta and lettuce. Gasthaus Hanno Poeschl, one of the best taverns in the centre of Vienna (Weihburggasse 17), applies a special traditional recipe to its Paprikahendl which is excellent. Quick Tips What To See And Do In Vienna
Savoury And Sweet Balls: NockerlNockerl, with all their irregularities, have been shaping Austrian food. They are based on either flour, semolina/polenta, or soft cheese, and bound with eggs and milk. They are eaten with savoury dishes or as sweet dishes. They are utterly simple, versatile, and inexpensive. While you can easily form them using two spoons, there is a special tool called Nockerlhobel to get them in perfect shape. Here are the three most popular types of Nockerl GriessnockerlWhen I crave Austrian food at my London home, I usually make semolina balls. They are easy to prepare and are used as a solid ingredient for clear soups. EiernockerlThese are simple balls based on flour, eggs and milk. Add them to scrambled eggs and toss them with parsley for a simple dish. Best eaten with lettuce. TopfennockerlThe soft cheese balls are made from semolina and soft cheese, which gives them a light texture. You eat them with strawberry or plum compote, tossed with breadcrumbs fried in butter, and cinnamon. Salzburger Nockerl
They are not only the fluffiest of all Nockerl but a cult dessert from the region of Salzburg. More a soufflé rather than balls, they are made from egg yolk, sugar, loads of whipped egg white and a little flour. We have even created a song and 1990ies TV series out of them! Skilled cooks can prepare them at home. In any case, try the original version in Austria, if you can, as they can turn out in different ways. Savoury And Sweet Dumplings: Knödel
Learn how to prepare the best Austrian Knodel by using my favourite dumpling recipes. Root Vegetables in Austrian FoodAustrian food, much like other Central European cuisine, is unthinkable without root vegetables. Carrots, turnips, parsnips, radish, beet root, celeriac and potatoes are used as side dishes. There is nothing like having your Wiener Schnitzel with Austrian potato salad, still a little warm, with finely chopped onions and flavoured with broth. Beet-root salad with chopped parsley is also popular. Breaded and fried celeriac also performs perfectly as a stand-alone dish, served with mayonnaise and potatoes. Austria's officially best chef Heinz Reitbauer has been cultivating his passion for forgotten Austrian vegetables at his Michelin restaurant Steirereck in Vienna, serving beta sweet carrots and gold roots. Austrian DessertsAustrian desserts enjoy a reputation that is probably only topped by Mozart. Hardly any page about Austrian food can surpass the Sacher Torte. There are loads of other fantastic cakes served in Austrian patisseries, such as Dobostorte, Eszterhazytorte, Imperialtorte, or Kardinalschnitten. The list below focuses on those desserts most popular in traditional Austrian households, in addition to the sweet balls and dumplings which I described above. GugelhupfFormerly the cake of the poor, Emperor Francis Joseph and his sweet tooth promoted this cake until it became Austria's number one for afternoon tea, breakfast and dessert. Learn all about Gugelhupf and classic Austrian recipes, which can also be used to bake American Bundt cakes. Apple strudel
If it wasn't for the Siege of Vienna and Budapest by the Turks, our apple strudel would look different. The Ottomans (Turks) are said to have added the apple strudel to Austrian food. The strudel is made from puff pastry that is used in Turkish baklava but can, however, also be done with yeast dough. People from my mother's generation downwards used to make apple strudel from the original strudel dough, skillfully pulling and extending the dough until it was like thin pergament, covering the whole kitchen table, with the thicker edges hanging over the table's edges, before being cut. Especially if you use ready made puff pastry, the strudel is easy to prepare yourself. It is best eaten when bathing in warm vanilla sauce! Vienna Travel Planning
RehrückenThis chocolate cake is not made with flour, but breadcrumbs, sometimes marzipane, ground almonds, chocolate, and apricot jam. The result is a sweet and fluffy dough, It is filled into a long shaped creased cake form which is why it is called 'Deer Back' (Rehrücken). My grandmother, who only cooked Austrian food, excelled with this cake for many years. KaiserschmarrnKaiserschmarrn is a thick pancake with raisins, torn into giant flakes and topped with plum compote, caster sugar and cinnamon. According to one legend, the Austrian Emperor's kitchen staff would at times ruin the pancakes for the Emperor, creating an 'Emperor's Mess' (Kaiserschmarrn) and had to eat them themselves. At the annual Film and Food Festival in front of Vienna's City Hall, Kaiserschmarrn is prepared in a huge pan and sold to the public. PalatschinkenThough similar to the French crêpes, Palatschinken are a typical Austrian food. They are a little softer than crêpes, as they are not made with mineral water. The most popular filling is apricot jam and chocolate. The left overs of Palatschinken usually get sliced up into Fritatten for clear soup. Topfenkolatschen
The Topfenkolatsche, a small square-shaped cheesecake made of danish or puff pastry, is another lovely down-to-earth Austrian sweet dish. The soft cheese filling is made with caster sugar, raisins, egg yolk and corn starch. Topfenkolatschen are actually used for afternoon tea or as a sweet snack rather than for dessert. Most Austrian bakeries or patisseries sell them. Kärntner ReindlingThe Carinthian Reindling is a dry yeast cake with raisins, and one of Carinthia's most popular regional dishes. Its taste is quite close to the Panettone of neighbouring Italy. As the Reindling has a quite neutral flavour, people eat it with ham and grated horse radish, or with jam and butter. The name Reindling is derived from the Austrian word for a flat pot (Reindl). Regional ProduceAustrian food consists of a few regional specialities that are typical or even unique. You can buy most of them at Naschmarkt, and in every well sorted Austrian supermarket or delicatessen shop. A great opportunity to taste authentic Austrian delicatessen is the annual Austrian food fair Genussfestival.
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