Viennese Cuisine - schnitzel, goulash, apple strudel and more
Welcome to Viennese cuisine seasoned with the ingredients of the imperial-royal monarchy ennobled by the imperial court, enjoyed in traditional cosiness....
Because Vienna was the center of the Hapsburg Empire, whose reach encompassed 600 million Eastern and Southern Europeans, you can expect to find a spectrum of cuisines beyond Austrian specialties. Besides Wiener Schnitzel and Hungarian Goulash, you'll find dumplings from Bohemia, Turkish coffee and superb pastries and desserts. Vienna is also famous for its coffeehouses and heurigen (wine cellars).
The traditional meal is Tafelspitz (boiled beef - the national dish of Austria) and the world-renowned Sachertorte for dessert.
Other Specialties: Lungenbraten (beef tenderloin stuffed with goose liver, served with cream sauce and dumplings), Raumschnitzel (creamed veal cutlet) and, of course, Wiener Schnitzel, Kernfleisch (stewed pork with horseradish), Zwiebelrostbraten (roast beef with onions), or one of the varieties of goulash.
Did you know that Viennese cuisine is the only one in the world named after a city? This is all the more remarkable as almost all its dishes derive from other European countries. For more than 1000 years the Austrian monarchistic empire was widely extended in Europe and was mixed up with multiple different nationalities and cultures, focused in the empire`s capital and reflected in the Cuisine.
But it took Viennese chefs to adapt the foreign recipes and make them uniquely Viennese - "good plain cooking", the way it is served in any restaurant in Vienna. Taste a Wiener Schnitzel, a tender piece of veal cutlet wrapped in a delicate coating of bread-crumbs. Or try Tafelspitz, boiled beef brisket or rump roast accompanied by home-fried potatoes, apple-horseradish sauce and chive sauce... Of course, Vienna is world-renowned for its pastries and desserts: take Kaiserschmarren (Emperor's Trifle) or a Strudel, filled with either apples or sweet cream cheese, or Gundel-Palatschinken (stuffed crepes with chocolate and nuts), or Germknodel (sweet dumplings with apricots or plums). Choose for yourself - imperial delights await you.
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Some Schnitzel Varieties:
- Wiener Schnitzel: the classic, a veal cutlet, simply breaded and sautéd. Superb.
- Zigeunerschnitzel: any dish done Zigeuner ("gypsy") style implies a relatively spicy sauce of tomatoes and mildly hot peppers.
- Naturschnitzel: an unbreaded schnitzel.
- Schnitzel Parisien-Art: Parisian-style means, I believe, floured but not breaded.
- Jagerschnitzel: hunter-style, implying a sauce of mushrooms.
- Rahmschnitzel: with a cream sauce.
- Surschnitzel: similar to Wiener Schnitzel, just another pork. Usually found in Heurigen.
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Other Specialities:
- Leberknodel Suppe
- Soup filled with big liver-dumplings.
- Gulasch: Hungarian-influenced stew, usually highly spiced with paprika. Can be made of any meat. Sometimes has potatoes in it, but more often served with bread or some kind of dumpling.
- Wiener Backhendl (Backhuhn)
Most Americans would be surprised to learn that the Viennese make fantastic fried chicken, and this is it.
The average quality of Austrian restaurant food and service is remarkably high. It's hard to get a bad meal, especially if you stick to the specialties. A typical schnitzel is perfectly prepared, even in the most mundane chain restaurants along the highway.
Source: Vienna and Viennese Art Web site.
Recipes
Austrian Goulasch
Ingredients:
- 2 1/4 Pounds stewing beef (pork is also used but usually made with beef).
- 2 1/4 - 4 1/2 Pounds of diced onions ( usual rule double amount of onions to meat )
- 1 Heaping tablespoon of tomato paste
- 2 Tablespoons of oil
- 2 Cups of water
- 4 Large heaping tablespoons of paprika powder
- 3 - 4 Garlic cloves pressed with a garlic press
- Salt to taste (small palm full)
- Caraway powder pinch
- Marjoram powder pinch
- 1 Soup spoon of vinegar
Directions:
If the Gulasch is too thin this is referred to as Gulasch Soup, and popular in Austria, as well. If you want it to be thicker, then grate potatoes in the gulasch as it cooks. This is a bland mix. Should you wish a little zing to it, add the necessary hot sauce, chili powder, or Italian dried red peppers - all of course at your own risk. Best to let the victims add their own zing, that way you do not get zapped. Sauté the onions in the large pot. Then add the remaining ingredients. Let it cook a whole day on a low flame stirring occasionally.
Try using a slow cooker set on low, but only after heating up for the first hour on high. Cooking time in slow cooker ca. 12 hours, or more if you wish. The longer it cooks the better it is. Tastes always better the next day after cooking as it needs time to brew like a good beer. Suggest serving with beer. Austrians usually serve with noodles (not used with the soup variation) or rolls. The rolls are then broken up in small pieces and placed in the gulasch to soak up the gravy. The rolls are especially popular with the soup variation. If you have extra gravy, try boiling frankfurters and serving with gravy and rolls. A pleasant change from the mustard/ketchup syndrome associated with franks.
Mahlzeit - Austrian dialect for Bon Appetite.
Ingredients:
- 1/2 lb Calf's liver
- 1 Hard roll OR 1 Large slice Italian bread
- 1 tb Butter
- 1 Egg
- 1 c Breadcrumbs
- Chopped fresh parsley
- Salt & pepper to taste
Directions:
Cut liver into chunks and place into blender until all meat has been pureed. Soak the roll or bread in water until soft, squeeze out the surplus moisture and finely mince or grate. Cream the butter with the other ingredients, finally adding sufficient breadcrumbs to make the mixture firm enough to be formed into small dumplings (less than an inch in diameter). If the dumplings are to served with stew or soup, simmer in this for 5 minutes. They may also be cooked in stock and served with meat and gravy.
Wiener Schnitzel
Ingredients:
- 6 Veal cutlets (Loin cut)
- 2 tb Worcestershire sauce
- 2 tb Dried mustard
- 2 tb Parmesan cheese
- 1 c Flour
- 1 tb Salt
- 1 tb Pepper
- 2 Eggs
- 1 Bay leaf
- 1 c Bread crumbs
- 2 tb Parsley
- 1 c Tomato puree
- 1/2 c Heavy cream
- 1 Celery stalk
- 5 sl Onion
- 1 Clove
- Salt to taste
- Pepper to taste
- 1 c Light cream
- 1 Garlic bud
- 1 t Chopped parsley
- 1/4 ts Baking Soda
Directions:
1. Use meat tenderizing hammer to pound veal to about 3/8 inch thick fillets. Note: Wear an apron, and be prepared for a wide ranging clean-up.
2. Lay out fillets on wax paper. Salt and pepper each fillet, brush with Worcestershire sauce, sprinkle with dried mustard and parmesan cheese. Gently tap mixture into veal.
3. Coat prepared veal pieces in flour. Beat eggs in shallow bowl. Dip floured veal pieces in egg, then coat with bread crumbs. The veal may be stored in fridge for up to 2 hours.
4. Combine tomato puree, celery, onion, garlic, salt, pepper, and clove in saucepan and simmer for 15 minutes. Strain through fine mesh sieve, pushing as much vegetable pulp through as possible. Return to saucepan and reheat.
5. Saute veal in frying pan with lots of butter or olive oil, turning often until both sides are browned. Serve on heated platter with parsley garnish.
6. Add baking soda to reheated vegetable puree, then combine first the light cream, then the heavy cream. Move to sauce boat and garnish with chopped parsley. Serve immediately.
Source: MasterCook
Tafelspitz
Mozart is probably Austria's most famous musician, but fabled Tafelspitz (boiled beef dinner) is its most famous dish. It got that way because of Austria's most famous Emperor, Franz Josef I. It is also called "The Emperor's Dish." Whatever Franz did, everyone else wanted to do too. So when the word got out that his Imperial Majesty preferred boiled beef dish called Tafelspitz for lunch to everything else, it was Tafelspitz mania, and it still is.
Boiled beef may sound dull, but tafelspitz is far from bland. Boiled to a tender delicacy, the "table end" cut is flavored with a variety of spices, including juniper berries, celery root, and onions. An apple and horseradish sauce further enlivens the dish, which is usually served with fried, grated potatoes. The best tafelspitz is served at the Sacher Hotel in Vienna, where the chefs have been making the dish for decades.
Ingredients:
- Water
- 2 lg Carrots - cut in thin sticks
- 1 t Salt
- 4 ea Celery stalks - cut in thin
- 3 lb Beef brisket -sticks
- 2 ea Leeks, white part only
- 2 ea Gherkins
- 1 ea Onion - cut in rings
- Parsley
- Swedish mayonnaise
- 1/3 c Mayonnaise
- 3 T Horsradish - grated
- 1/3 c Apple puree
Swedish Mayonnaise - combine mayonnaise, apple puree and horsradish. Refrigerate at least 1 hour; stir before serving Beef - heat 2 qt. water with salt. Add beef; bring to a boil. Skim foam from surface until clear. Partially cover pot; simmer 1-1/2 hours. Cut leeks in 2 inch pieces, then cut in half lengthwise. Add leeks, onion, carrots and celery to beef. Cook until beef and vegetables are tender. Cut beef into 1/2 inch slices. Cut gherkins lengthwise in thin slices, leaving 1 end uncut. Spread out slices like a fan - garnish beef with gherkins. Serve vegetables in a seperate dish with 4 Tbs. cooking liquid spooned over the top. Garnish with parsley. Serve with Swedish Mayonnaise.
Viennese Apple Strudel
Start with the strudel pastry:
Ingredients:
- 8 oz plain flour
- 1 pinch salt
- 1 tsp vinegar
- 1/8 cup lukewarm water
- 1 tbsp oil
In a bowl mix together flour, vinegar, oil and salt. Add enough warm water until the mixture sticks together and can be put onto a pastry board sprinkled with flour. With your hands knead the dough and add flour or water if necessary until the dough becomes silky smooth and keeps its shape. Put a little (1/2 tsp) oil into a warm bowl and spread it around until there is a thin film. Place the dough into the bowl and turn it over several times until it is covered with a thin film of oil, cover with clean cloth and let rest for about 30 minutes.
In the meantime, prepare the apples:
Ingredients:
- 1 pound golden delicious apples 2 or 3 tbsp melted butter/margarine
- 3/4 cup raisins, rinsed and dried
- cinnamon
- 1 1/2 cups breadcrumbs
- sugar
Directions:
Peel, core and thinly slices the apples. Put the breadcrumbs into a pan and roast them until slightly brown, set aside.
Prepare a table cloth over a kitchen table and sprinkle with flour. Sprinkle a pastry board with flour and place the strudel dough onto it. Knead a few more minutes until all the oil is absorbed. With a rolling pin roll the dough out as thin as possible and then slide your hands with the palms down underneath the dough. Pull and stretch it from always from the middle, being careful not to tear the dough until it is paper thin.
Place the dough onto the kitchen table and cut off the thick ends. Brush ¾ of the dough with melted butter and sprinkle the toasted breadcrumbs evenly over ¾ of the dough. Spread the apples over the breadcrumbs and sprinkle cinnamon, raisins and sugar over the apples. The amount of sugar and cinnamon depends on your personal taste. Fold over the 3 narrow sides of the strudel and roll the strudel up completely and place it onto a jelly roll pan. Brush the strudel one more time with some melted butter and bake it at 350 degrees until golden brown.
Source: Meal-Master
Gugelhupf - the famous Austrian coffee cake
Ingredients:
- 3 1/2 oz butter
- 4 tbsp milk
- 5 oz sugar grated rind of ½ a lemon
- 5 eggs, separated
- 1 tsp vanilla
- 10 oz flour
- 1/2 cup raisins, washed and dried
- 2 tsp baking powder
Directions:
Use butter or margarine to grease a bundt cake form and sprinkle flour over the greased form until it has a thin layer of flour all over. Shake off the excess flour. Beat egg whites until very stiff, set aside. Beat butter until very creamy, add sugar and beat until pale and fluffy, add eggs one by one and vanilla and lemon rind and beat mixture until it turns pale yellow and very creamy.
Mix flour and baking powder and add 2/3 of the flour and all the milk by the spoonful to the mixture. Add the remaining flour, raisins and the egg whites by the spoonful and gently fold under the mixture. Bake at 350 degrees until golden brown. Let the Gugelhupf cool in the pan for about 30 minutes and sprinkle it with powdered sugar after removing it from the pan.
Linzertorte - almond and rasberry cake
Ingredients:
- 5 oz sugar
- 1 egg
- 5 oz flour
- 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
- 5 oz butter
- raspberry jam for filling
- 5 oz ground almonds
- 1 beaten egg for brushing the pastry
Directions:
On a pastry board mix together all dry ingredients. Cut the butter into small pieces and crumble it into the dry mixture until it becomes fine and crumbly. Add the egg and work the mixture into a smooth dough. Roll out two-thirds of the pastry into a springform pan and spread a good amount of raspberry jam on top of it.
Roll the remaining dough with your hands into thin, even, rounded pastry strips (think "Slim Jim"). Arrange the strips in a criss-cross pattern over the top of the cake. Brush with beaten egg and bake until golden brown at about 350 degrees.
Salzburger Nockerl - Viennese Pudding
Ingredients:
- 3 tbsp butter
- 3 eggs, separated
- 3 tbsp powdered sugar
- 1 tsp flour
- 2 tbsp milk
Beat egg whites until very stiff, set aside. Beat butter, sugar and egg yolks until very creamy. Very gently fold the egg whites and flour into the egg mixture. Heat the milk to very hot and pour it into an ovenproof omelet pan. Drop the soufflé mixture in three large ‘blobs’ into the pan. Make the blobs high rather than wide and set them a little apart. Bake them at about 400 degrees until the tops are golden brown. The center should be light and creamy, the outside golden brown and puffed.
Source: Vienna and Viennese Art Web site.