Welcome to Austria!
Austria, according to Google, has a population of 9,006,398 people. The capital is Vienna. I don't know about you, but the first thing I thought about with Austria was "The Sound of Music". And the only food I could think of was "...Schnitzel with noodles...". Turns out, I wasn't completely off! What is the official food, you ask?
Wienerschnitzel!
Apparently, it isn't traditional, and is almost unheard of, to eat schnitzel with noodles - who knew?! I searched for a recipe for weinerschnitzel, and finally found one. I made Kartoffelsalat (warm potato salad) and Gerkensalat (cucumber salad) to go with it as well. For dessert, we had Kaiserschmarrn (scrambled pancake). If you can say any of those names, my hat is off to you!
Here's what I did:
- Slice the cucumber very thin, and put in colander. Sprinkle salt on the cucumbers and let them sit to get the water out. (I left mine for four hours, but that's because I got distracted...)
- Rinse the cucumbers, and let them drain while you do the next step
- Warm the vinegar and water in a bowl in the microwave. I did mine for 30 seconds, and it was fine
- Add sugar and stir until it is dissolved
- Add all the ingredients together, and chill until ready to serve
- In a large pot, combine the potatoes, broth, water, salt, sugar, and white wine vinegar and bring to a boil
- Reduce heat to simmer and cover until potatoes are done
- Remove cover, increase heat, and cook off liquid until you have about 1/4 cup of liquid
- Drain, but save the liquid
- Add mustard to the liquid
- Add about six of your potato pieces to the liquid and mustard, and mash like you would mashed potatoes
- Add the onion, pickles, and the rest of the potatoes to the mash
- Add salt and pepper to taste, and top with chives
- Tenderize pork to about 1/4 inches
- Salt on both sides
- Put the flour in one bowl, the egg in the next bowl, and bread crumbs in the last bowl
- Heat the butter and oil in frying pan
- Coat the pork in flour, then egg, then bread crumbs
- Fry the pork in the oil/butter mixture, making sure that the oil covers all sides
- Flip the pork after about five minutes, or until it is almost done and you have a golden crust
- When golden on both sides, remove and drain on a plate with paper towels
- Fry the parsley for about 30-45 seconds in the remaining oil/butter mixture
- Remove parsley and drain
- Serve weinerschitzel immediately with lemon slices and topped with fried parsley
You will note that the recipe says to salt both sides of the pork - don't forget this like I did...Also, the original recipe called for veal. I chose to use pork chops because I had them on hand.
(Source: https://www.internationalcuisine.com/wiener-schnitzel/)
- Combine the raisins, water, and rum extract in a small bowl to soak
- Separate the eggs
- Put the egg whites in a stand mixer or a bowl with a hand mixer and beat on medium high until stiff peaks form
- Transfer the egg whites to another bowl
- In the now-empty stand mixer, mix yolks, melted butter, vanilla, sugar, and pinch of salt. Use the mixer and combine for about 2 minutes
- On a low speed, add the milk and flour, one tbsp at a time. Scrape down the sides as needed
- Use a spatula and gently fold in the egg whites until no large white clumps remain. Be very careful and light-handed!
- Heat 1 tbsp of butter in a frying pan on medium heat
- Add all of the batter to the frying pan, and let cook for about 3 minutes, then add the drained raisins. Cook for another 4 minutes. You can check if the pancake is cooked on the bottom by gently lifting the sides. When it is golden brown and slightly crispy, you're ready for the next step
- Use your spatula and cut the pancake in 4 pieces. Flip each piece, adding a small bit of butter as you flip (this was the trickiest part, but I'm not very good at flipping things...)
- Cook for another 3 minutes
- Use two forks and tear the pancake into bite-sized pieces
- Add 2 tbsp of butter and 2 tbsp of sugar, and turn on high heat to caramelize
- Serve topped with powdered sugar and applesauce
(Source: https://platedcravings.com/kaiserschmarrn-recipe/)
The verdict? The weinerschitzel was bland, but that was likely my fault for forgetting the salt. The crust was really good and crunchy, which is impressive for gluten free! I'm sure regular flour and bread crumbs would be delicious as well. The cucumber salad was good, but not great. It complemented the dinner as a whole by giving it something acidic, so we were glad we had it.
The winner was the potato salad. I am not a fan of potato salad in general, but I did like this one. I liked the pickles in it. Next time, I am going to try making it with roasted cauliflower. We'll see how that goes...
As for dessert, it was interesting. It did not smell super appetizing, but that could be the gluten free flour. Handsome Husband said that he enjoyed the caramelized pieces very much, and that the dish was very filling. It wasn't my favorite dessert. I found it very sweet. The unsweetened applesauce was my favorite part!
So, the rating. We're both going to rate the dishes on a scale from 1-10.
So there you have it! I'm glad you joined us! Next stop...Seychelles!
(And yes, we did watch "The Sound Of Music" :-)
I will have to try the potato salad. Grandma Doris used to make a hot potato salad with bacon. It was yummy too.
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