Austrian

Baking a batch of these classic Austrian sandwich cookies is a project—but totally worth it.

Is it a dumpling or a noodle? Spaetzle, the beloved dish of Austrians, Germans, Hungarians, and the Swiss, is infinitely easier to make than it is to classify. While some spaetzle dishes are cheesy and rich, this version is lightened with fresh herbs—a lot of them.

Wiener schnitzel (German for “Viennese cutlet”) is a time-honored Austrian dish believed to be inspired by the Italian methods of cooking cutlets known as Milanese or scaloppine. All of these are variations of the same technique: a cutlet (either veal, chicken, or pork) is coated with flour, then beaten egg, then bread crumbs before being pan-fried to a golden crisp. What distinguishes Wiener schnitzel from other sautéed meats is that the pan-fried cutlets pay a second visit to the pan for a last-minute dip into sizzling butter. Because the cutlets are breaded in a three-step method, they have a wonderfully crisp crust. The method is ideal when pan-frying cutlets and other smaller pieces since they will be able to cook through in the same time the crust turns crisp and brown. The process is simple but each step has a purpose: The flour creates a dry surface for the egg to cling to, while the egg serves as the “glue” for the breading, and the crumb coating (such as bread crumbs, panko, or ground nuts) adds unbeatable texture and flavor. Pat or press the crumbs firmly onto the meat and gently shake off any excess.

With all the emphasis on French and Italian rustic breads these days, it is easy to overlook the fact that the real center of the bread and pastry universe for hundreds of years was Vienna. Most of the great French breads that we love today, including baguettes, croissants, and even puff pastry, came to France a couple hundred years ago via the Austro-Hungarian empire, where they found a hungry audience willing to support these Austrian (which included Polish) bakers. Nowadays, the main distinction in American (and even European) bakeries between French, Italian, and Vienna breads, is the presence of a few enrichments in the latter. A little added sugar and malt causes the crust to brown faster, and a small amount of butter or shortening tenderizes the dough by coating and “shortening” the gluten strands. The shape, as with all culturally based bread, is determined by the baker based on function, but we usually think of Vienna bread as typically twelve inches long and weighing one pound. It is often scored down the middle to make a nice “ear,” but does not have quite as hard a crust nor as open a crumb as French bread. This dough makes exceptional pistolets (torpedo rolls), similar to the hoagie rolls made from the Italian bread on page 172, and it can be baked in loaf pans for excellent sandwich loaves. One of the best applications for this dough is to make Dutch crunch bread, as discussed on page 264.

This Yuletide variation on the popular Austrian linzertorte (page 236) features an innovative gingerbread crust surrounding a homemade raspberry-jam filling. Snowflake and dot shapes are cut out from the top; sprinkle the snowflake cutouts—and any others cut from dough scraps—with sugar and bake them to serve as cookies alongside.

The Linzer cookie, thought to have originated in the city of Linz, is based on the Linzertorte, one of the most famous and beloved confections in Austria. The cookies are like mini versions of the torte, which consists of a buttery dough, rich with ground almonds or hazelnuts, spread with jam—usually raspberry or apricot these days, but originally with black or red currant jam or jelly—and then topped with a lattice of more dough before baking. You don't see Linzertortes often on this side of the Atlantic because the Linzer cookie is so much easier to make and delivers the same wonderful interplay of flavors. With its snowy dusting of confectioners' sugar and glistening red raspberry jam filling, which peeks out from the center of the sandwich cookie, it definitely screams "holiday."

Wiener schnitzel, one of Austria’s most famous culinary exports, is traditionally made with a pounded out boneless veal chop, though at $15 to $16 per chop (also per serving) it’s a lot more feasibly reproduced with cutlets. If the cutlets you buy are thicker than those called for here, pound them gently between two sheets of wax paper using the bottom of a small saucepan. And if you opt for the more opulent—but not necessarily better—veal chops, you may want to have two skillets going at the same time, as a properly flattened boneless veal chop will be 8 to 9 inches in diameter and you’ll have to cook them one at a time. You can, of course, follow this recipe using chicken, turkey, or pork cutlets.

Editor's note: This recipe appears as part of our editors' Christmas Cookie Swap, 10 beloved holiday recipes from the editors of Epicurious and Gourmet Live. This is loosely adapted from an old recipe that originally appeared in The New York Times. It calls for vanilla sugar, a blend of confectioners' sugar and the seeds from a vanilla bean. The mixture keeps indefinitely and is wonderful sprinkled over French toast or berries.

In the past few years, bakers have been upping the ante with chocolate desserts (think of your local American bistro's "warm chocolate cakes with gooey chocolate centers").

For dessert, Grimes was inspired by something from Vienna, a little farther along the Danube: linzertorte. It's traditionally made with hazelnuts and raspberry jam, but this version, with its warmly spiced almond pastry and vivid apricot filling, spoke to Grimes of the highly polished coffeehouses in that part of the world. Cooking dried apricots with brandy and sugar allows you to control the sweetness quotient, and the result is all about the magically musky, tangy fruit.

Editor's note: This recipe is from chef Wolfgang Puck. I grew up only about 280 miles west of Transylvania, as the bat flies. So maybe my mother cooked with so much garlic to keep the vampires away from my sisters, my brother, and me. Actually, Austrians, like many Europeans, love the powerful bulb, and as a child I ate more than my share of it in soups, stews, sautés, roasts, and other savory dishes. But only as a professional chef did I learn the secret of roasting garlic. Because its texture is buttery and rich, I like to spread it on crostini. Once you've spread the roasted garlic over your toasts you can choose from a number of toppings.

For this lighter-than-air Austrian soufflé, we've added tart lingonberry sauce, but any preserves or jam will work.

In the late nineteenth century, the city of Czernowitz, known as the Vienna of Eastern Europe, was famous throughout Austria-Hungary for its tolerance, civic beauty, culture, and learning. Frequently renationalized over the last millennium, Czernowitz has passed through Romanian, Ottoman, and Austrian control and is now a Ukrainian city called Chernivtsi. At its cultural peak at the turn of the twentieth century, it was populated and governed by Jews from Poland, Russia, Austria, and Romania — it even hosted the first-ever Yiddish-language conference in 1908. Of course, World War II destroyed this idyll, and most of the city's Jews were deported to Auschwitz. This recipe for a classic European challah (pronounced "chern-o-vitzer") comes from the late Lotte Langmann. It is not terribly sweet or eggy, but it is generously enriched with oil. The Austrians traditionally use a four-stranded braid, but this dough holds its shape so beautifully during baking that it is a great choice for showing off any fancy shape. This has become one of my favorite challah recipes.

Topfenknodel A distant relative of mine, originally from the Polish-German-Czechoslovakian border area (previously part of the Austrian Empire), was an exceptional cook but refused to share her recipes, claiming that either the dish would not turn out as good as hers did, in which case she would be blamed, or it would be as good or better, in which case her own cooking skills would be diminished. Among her repertoire were light, slightly tangy cheese dumplings. No one, however, ever wrangled the real recipe from her. Fortunately, I found a number of cooperative cooks who were more than willing to share their recipes with me. These popular dumplings are called topfenknodel in Austria and Germany, turos gomboc in Hungary, syrove knedliky in Czech, and kluski in Poland. Topfen, also called quark in German, is a thick, slightly tangy central European curd cheese popular for making dumplings, spreads, and toppings. Since topfen is generally unavailable in America, a little cream cheese is added to the pot cheese to approximate the original texture and flavor. You can substitute farmer cheese for the pot cheese, but first wrap it in several layers of paper towels, then let it drain for about 10 minutes to extract some of the excess moisture. Do not use cottage cheese, which contains too much liquid and is too firm. My grandmother served savory cheese dumplings on Shavuot as an appetizer, accompanied with sour cream or browned bread crumbs (2 cups fresh bread crumbs sautéed in 6 tablespoons butter until golden), or a sweetened version as dessert.

Editor's note: The recipe and introductory text below are excerpted from David Bouley, Mario Lohninger, and Melissa Clark's book East of Paris: The New Cuisines of Austria and the Danube. Lohninger also shared some helpful cooking tips exclusively with Epicurious, which we've added at the bottom of the page. To read more about Lohninger and Austrian cooking, click here. Spätzle are tiny dumplings that you make by passing a thin batter through a colander (or a spätzle maker) into a pot of boiling water. You can serve them simply boiled and drained, topped with melted butter and poppy seeds, or fried with onions and cheese as we do here. This is a rich mountain-style skiers' dish that will really keep you going.

(Vanillesauce) Editor's note: The recipe and introductory text below are excerpted from Rick Rodgers's book Kaffeehaus: The Best Desserts from the Classic Cafés of Vienna, Budapest, and Prague. To read more about Austrian cooking, click here. This recipe originally accompanied Farmer's Cheese and Raisin Filo Strudel. A cousin to the French crème anglaise, this pale yellow dessert sauce is called Kanarienmilch, or "canary milk," in some old cookbooks. The Viennese version is boiled, as the egg yolks are protected from curdling by the cornstarch. This makes it a slightly thicker, less egg-rich sauce that beautifully offsets Austro-Hungarian desserts. Because it takes less watching, I now use Vanillesauce whenever I need a vanilla dessert sauce.

(Topfenstrudel) Editor's note: The recipe and introductory text below are excerpted from Rick Rodgers's book Kaffeehaus: The Best Desserts from the Classic Cafés of Vienna, Budapest, and Prague. Rodgers also shared some helpful cooking tips exclusively with Epicurious, which we've added at the bottom of the page. To read more about Austrian cooking, click here. Not every café has a full-time baker. At many, it's just Mama in the kitchen and often Mama doesn't feel like (or doesn't have enough counter space for) hand-pulling strudel dough. This classic recipe layers store-bought filo dough with a Topfen filling in a pan to make a deep-dish dessert. Thanks to Gerda Hofer for this recipe.

This torte is a masterful mix of textures: The top crust bakes up with a hint of crackly crunch, giving way to a moist, light interior studded with tiny bits of hazelnut.

An adaptation of Viennese butterschnitzel, these individual meatloaves are incredibly moist and juicy.

Palacsinta When crêpes entered the American consciousness, they had an air of fussiness about them. But the truth is they're very easy to make — and a regular nonstick skillet and ordinary spoon work just as well as any crêpe pan or tiny specialty ladle. This Austro-Hungarian dessert strikes just the right balance of lightness and sweetness.