Boiled pork with horseradish

http://www.bernhards.at/recipes/pork_horseradish.php

Pork is very popular in Austrian cooking and though most of the times it is enjoyed cooked as a roast or as pork chops or schnitzels there is a staple dish where the meat is boiled – Krenfleisch.

The chunk is being boiled with root vegetables. Then the meat is served sliced and accompanied with some of the root vegetables, plain boiled potatoes, some of that wonderful pork broth and is finalized with freshly grated horseradish.

I prefer shoulder or belly from pork, it has a good relation of fat vs. lean meat and I just love that pork skin when boiled. Also fatty meat just gives better soups and this dish is nothing without the soup.

Ingredients:

• 3 lb pork in one piece (shoulder, belly, blade roast)
• 1 lb root vegetables (carrots, celeriac, hamburg parsley, leeks)
• 1 onion
• 1 qt. fresh water
• around 1 Tablespoon salt
• optional: 2-3 juniper berries, 2 bay leaves, few peppercorns
• 6 Tablespoons freshly grated horseradish (Attention: only grate horseradish shortly before dinner, it gets an unsavory color if you let it stand too long.)

Method:

In a large soup pot put the meat and water to boil. Let cook for at least one hour or until meat is almost cooked through and tender. Do not salt first as the meat would gain an unnatural, redish color.

In the meantime clean and cut the vegetables and onion and set aside.

When meat is cooked and only needs another 20 minutes to cook add the root vegetables, onion and seasonings. Bring to a boil again and cook for around 20 minutes. Some like the vegetables cooked to soft, others like it still firm, this is totally up to you.

For serving do the following: Slice up the meat to convenient portions. Use a soup plate and put in the meat, add a few plain boiled potatoes, some of the root vegetables and a few spoons of that wonderful broth on top. Now sprinkle with freshly grated horseradish and serve steamingly hot.

Tips: Only grate the horseradish shortly before serving as it gets an unsavory color very soon. If kids are eating spare the horseradish, it is spicy and hot. When grating horseradish be careful, it might take your breath away. You could serve a soup as starter because naturally you will gain quite a lot of soup from that huge joint of meat. If you have any meat leftovers make a Tiroler Groestl the next day.

Käsespätzle - Kasnocken

http://www.bernhards.at/recipes/kasespatzle-kasnocken.php

Kasnocken or Käsespätzle (cheese noodles) are a dish which you will often find in Tirol and Vorarlberg, Austria's mountainous region. Spätzle are tiny egg dumplings that can be made with a Spätzle maker. Prepared Spätzle join sauteed onions and grated cheese in a pan, the cheese melts and the hearty dish is served with green salads.

As with many other typical Austrian dishes there is no ruling recipe, every cook has an own special way to make the best Kasnocken. I have been working for quite a lot of hotels, restaurants and pubs (Austrian Gasthaus) in every corner of the country and everywhere they have the "right" version of the recipe for Käsespätzle.

Some even bake it in the oven instead of in a pan on the stove, that's not the point, the point is to make the cheese melt over the tiny egg dumplings and that occurs in the pan as well as in a baking dish in the oven.

I vote for a pan, an iron one. A pan in which you can scratch, one of those "I am just a normal, iron pan" - not the ones "No sticking". My personal not so secret secret is this: I sautee the onions, just kind of melt them, no color. Then I add the Spätzle and the grated cheese and a spoonful of stock or broth to make that cheese melt better.

When the cheese melts, it wants to stick on the bottom of the pan. I let it stick, almost let this burn a little, get some color. Then I scratch off this sticking cheese from the pan's bottom and stir to combine with the rest just to let again stick some of the cheese and almost burn. Scratch off and stir, by this you get tremendous taste into the dish.

But that's just my version. You can also use the following recipe and use a non sticking pan and bring the cheese to melt and stir and serve, the stinkier the cheese the better.

Feeds 3:

• Prepare this Spätzle recipe
• 1 Tablespoons vegetable oil
• 1 Tablespoon butter
• 4 ounces cheese (Emmental or Gruyere)
• ½ cup broth or stock (or even water)
• 1 medium onion, chopped or sliced
• salt and pepper (to your taste)
• chopped chives

Sautee the onions
In a pan heat the vegetable oil and butter and sautee the sliced or chopped onion until slightly colored.

Add Spätzle and cheese
Add the noodles and stir and combine making sure the Spätzle are heated through. Turn to moderate heat and add grated cheese now. Pour in the liquid e.g. broth or water so the cheese melts better. All that liquid will vanish, we do not need it, it is only good to make the cheese melt better and equably spread it within the Spätzle.

Stir and combine
All should bubble and sizzle and you should stir good. If you use a scratch-resistent pan you might do as I described above. otherwise just stir and make the cheese melt and the liquid vanish.

Taste
Sample a spoonful of your Kasnocken. The Spätzle already have some taste from its recipe, the cheese is salty by nature. Adjust seasoning with salt and pepper to your liking.

Serve
Serve Käsespätzle topped with chopped chives and if you want, as seen in Tirol, with prepared crispy onion rings (or what is left from them after all have broken into tiny bits - like mine!!!) Green salads go very well with this hearty dish.

Austrian Tafelspitz--boiled beef

http://www.bernhards.at/recipes/tafelspitz.html

Tafelspitz – boiled beef, is a typical Austrian dish. A well-hung piece of beef from the rump of a young ox is used to be boiled with root vegetables.

The name Tafelspitz is the name of the meat cut which is used. Austrian butchers gave almost every muscle a name. The hinder beef leg alone is parted into 16 cuts: there is for example the Hueferscherzl, Hueferschwanzl, Nuss, Wadlstutzen, Gschnatter, Schwarzes Scherzl, Weisses Scherzl, Duennes Kuegerl, Schalblattel also called Fledermaus ... Tafelspitz is only one of them but a delicious one for a boiled beef. It is located at the top of the hinder leg.

Alternatively, a similar cut of beef from a young ox, properly hung, with firm white fat (not yellow) can be used. The fat can be left on to prevent the meat from becoming dry.

The Austrian Emperor Franz Joseph (symbol of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy) was a great lover of Tafelspitz. "His Majesty's private table is never without a fine piece of boiled beef, which is one of his favorite dishes."

Serves 4-6.

Ingredients:

• 3 lbs. beef, tri-tip or brisket, in one piece
• around 3 qt. of fresh cold water
• 3 carrots, peeled
• 1 large piece of celeriac, peeled
• 2 leeks, cleaned
• 1 root of hamburg parsley, peeled
• a few springs of lovage
• 2 onions, halved
• salt, peppercorn, juniper berry, few bay leaves

Method of cooking Tafelspitz--Austrian boiled beef:

1. Boil the beef
Bring water to a rolling boil. Add bay leaves, juniper berries, peppercorn and the meat and cook for about one and a half hours. From time to time skim of the gray foam from the surface of the soup to make sure you have a clear soup at the end. This procedure is much like if you would cook a beef broth.

In fact as Tafelspitz is a quite expensive piece of meat, many Austrian families buy other parts of beef that are not as exclusive as Tafelspitz but still delicious and Austrians always eat the soup that results from the cooking of the beef as starter as it is delighting and much tastier than a broth made just out of bones.

2. Add root vegetables
Now add all the root vegetables and keep boiling until the meat is not only cooked but also tender

3. Serving the beef
To serve Tafelspitz cut meat against the grain into one inch slices, pour some of the broth over it and chop some of the root vegetables you cooked with the meat and accompany the meat with it. Austrian sautéed potatoes, creamed spinach, apple-horseradish sauce and chives sauce
go well with this traditional Austrian dish.

Roast goose

http://www.bernhards.at/recipes/gooseroast.html

Austrians eat a roast goose around November 11 (St. Martin´s Day) which is celebrated in Austria, France, Germany and many other European countries. Learn more about St. Martin´s Day in my article St. Martin and the goose roast here at bernhards.at. Many Austrian restaurants feature Goose Week (Ganslwochen) or Martin-Goose (Martinigans).

Wash the goose, inside and out, then rub it also in and out with salt, pepper and marjoram; mix chunks of apples and oranges with marjoram, and stuff the goose with that.

Being a waterfowl, a goose is very fatty; at first, put it in a baking pan in the oven initially at high heat and later at moderate heat for about 3 hours, depending on the size of the bird. During the first half of the roasting process, remove the fat which the goose releases. Then start to pour some dark beer, and later the pan juices, over the roasting bird. The goose's breast will be cooked long before the legs. So by pouring over the juices you make sure the bird does not dry out.

Serves 6-10, depending on size of goose, Cooking time: About 4 hours or more.

Ingredients:

• 1 whole domestic goose (6lb - 10lb)
• 1 pear, 1 apple, 1 orange
• Salt, pepper and marjoram
• Liquid to pour over the goose:
  dark beer, red wine, poultry broth,
  even water will do

How to cook roast goose:

1. Wash, season and stuff the bird
Wash the bird with lukewarm water in and outside and dry with paper towels, then place it in your roasting pan. Now preheat the oven to 430 F. or 220 C. degrees. Meanwhile cut the fruit into quite big chunks and mix them together with a bit of salt, pepper and marjoram. Fresh marjoram is best, but dried will do the job.

Remove giblets of the goose (heart, liver, stomach) and rub the goose outside and in with a mixture of salt, ground pepper and marjoram. Rub it in very well; this is all the seasoning we will apply. Then stuff the bird with the fruit mixture; to ensure this stuffing remains in place when turning bird over, you can sew the goose after stuffing it.

2. First with high heat
Unlike a chicken, a goose is not just bigger, but its meat also needs more time to cook. So I put it in the oven at high heat, around 220 C or 430 F. I leave it there for about one hour and reduce the heat to 140 C or 280 F after that. In this first hour, the goose will release a lot of pure goose fat. I also turn the bird over at halftime, this being the only turning I do. I do not add any liquids at first, only after removing most of the fat, which is great to have in the fridge. The goose gets a good color in this first hour.

3. Lower heat
I use a full bottle of dark beer to pour over the goose, from time to time. After that I use the pan juices to pour over the bird, to keep it moist. You can use chicken broth or just water, all will serve.

The goose is done when you can easily turn the leg bone of the bird. Or test by sticking the meat with a fork near the leg bone at the thickest point; remove the fork and observe the juices coming out. If they are clear like water, the meat is cooked.

4. The gravy
The goose is a fatty bird. When cooked, I remove it to a platter and let it rest at least 15 minutes before carving. During this time, I pour all the remaining pan juices into a saucepan and heat. A lot of fat floats to the surface; skim if off with a spoon. Or, if you have one, use a fat separator. Either way you free the gravy of most of the fat. Boil the juices, add more chicken broth, some red wine and water, till you have the volume you want. Boil and thicken with a bit of cornstarch or flour, season again to taste and cook another 3-5 minutes before serving.

5. Side dishes
In Austria we love to have braised red cabbage with goose or a warm white cabbage salad with bacon. And before I forget, you guessed it, a dumpling—here, the potato dumpling suits best.

Beef broth (Rindsuppe)

http://www.bernhards.at/recipes/beefbroth.html

Beef broth or Rindsuppe is the most popular of Austria’s clear soups; chicken broth is a close second. We serve it with various additions, most commonly very fine soup noodles made of wheat. Other additions are pancake strips (Frittaten), semolina dumplings (pictured), liver dumpling Another great soup is the so-called bread soup. We Austrians have great breads, and when there were boiled pork ribs on the menu, we had the broth as a starter with bread leftovers, thinly sliced brown bread, bits of root vegetables and a sprinkle of freshly chopped chives. Just great!!! and profiteroles. Also great are Tyrolean dumplings--bread dumplings with small cubes of smoked meat or bacon mixed into the dough--then boiled in water or in the broth itself.

Serves 6-8, Cooking time: About 2-3 hours

Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 lb beef bones and a piece of beef chuck
• carrots, celery root, leeks, parsley root, garlic
• 2 whole unskinned onions
• 5 pepper corns, 2 juniper berries, 2 bay leaves
• salt

How to cook beef broth:

1. Blanch the bones for a minute
Bring water to a boil and place bones in the boiling water. After boiling a minute or two, drain bones in colander and rinse with cold water. Now placing the bones in your soup pot, fill with fresh cold water and bring to a boil.

2. Cook gently
From now on, the broth should not cook too strongly, rather simmer. If the broth boils, it will not stay clear but will become muddy. Add a piece of beef, which not only adds flavor to your soup, but also is nice when chopped and served later with the broth.

3. Skim off scum and most of the fat
Especially at the beginning, a lot of grey scum will rise to the surface; skim it off frequently. As the cooking proceeds, less and less scum appears.

4. Adding the veggies
After about an hour cut the onions in half and sear them on the cut surface 'til it blackens. You can do this either directly on the stovetop or in a pan. Add the onions, root vegetables, herbs, but not the salt--only add salt when the broth is ready. The broth acquires a nice golden color from the onion skins.

5. Ready?
When that piece of meat is tender, the broth is golden, has a strong good aroma and the vegetables are cooked, it is ready to serve. Season with salt and maybe more ground pepper. Chop and add some of the vegetables and the meat and sprinkle with freshly chopped chives or another chopped herb.