Tuesday 25 November 2014

Globe-cooking recipe : Kaiserschmarrn (Austria)


One of the recipes in my Austrian-themed Kitchen Trotter box was for Kaiserschmarrn with Apfel Strudel, but I decided to make both separately. I came up with my own recipe for Apple Strudel during the World Cup foodie challenge so I'll be keen to see how this authentic recipe compares to my own invention. For today though, it was time to try the other part, Kaiserschmarrn or Emperor's Pancakes. 


The Kitchen Trotter box contained a kit for Kaiserschmarrn but you could easily make your own. (The Austrian National Tourist Office website has a recipe for making it from scratch.) The kit contained flour, brown sugar and raisins and required 4 eggs and some milk.


You need to separate the eggs.


Mix the flour then the milk into the yolks. Add a pinch of salt 
to the whites and whisk them until they go frothy. Add the brown sugar.


Gently fold the egg whites into the other bowl.


Melt some butter in a large frying pan and pour the whole lot in.


I was expecting this to cook like a pancake but it was more like an omelette really. It takes quite a while to cook through before flipping over so don't turn the heat up too high. With hindsight, I'd have reduced the heat on mine a bit because it got a bit brown in places. You need to keep tilting the pan then scraping it off the edges as it sets, as you would with an omelette.


Once it's cooked on one side and gone solid enough to be flipped over, you're supposed to use a plate to turn the whole thing over. However, as the next step is to smash it to bits in the pan, I decided to make my life easier by cutting it in four then flipping each quarter over with a fish slice.


Cook the second side and use the fish slice (or two forks) to cut it into chunks. This looks an absolute mess but, searching on google images for homemade Kaiserschmarrn (rather than professionally made and photographed ones), this is what they pretty much all look like so I don't feel so bad !


The recipe suggested drizzling over elderflower cordial and icing sugar but we opted for pancake syrup and icing sugar. This was a real blast from the past because they tasted exactly like the thick pancakes my mum used to make (as opposed to the thin French crêpes we usually eat in Brittany).

Verdict : 0/10 for visual appeal but the whole lot disappeared and everyone made appreciative noises so I'd say they were a hit !

*** Don't miss my country-by-country globecooking recipe index ! ***

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