Austrian Cuisine: Top 5 Hut Dishes

What’s on the Austria cuisine Menu?

Austria cuisine is famous for its cozy, satisfying hut cuisine. Here’s a short list of delectable dishes and mountain musts.

Groestl

Don’t be alarmed by the name. From the German “to roast”, this is a leftovers lovefest of bacon, onion and potatoes — piled up, fried up and carbo-fantastic. Not only it is filling and tasty, it’s a scientifically proven hangover cure. Ask anyone. Even better served with a fried egg and a tall frothy beer. Feeling better already, aren’t you?

http://www.austria.info/us/basic-facts/austrian-cuisine/tiroler-groestl

Goulash

From the Hungarian term for herdsman, this hearty meat stew sates the appetites of plains-roaming shepherds and powder-hungry skiers with equal aplomb. Happily no longer transported in the stomachs of sheep as was tradition in former times, the zesty paprika-spiced dish is a meal in a bowl and a classic skier’s dish in huts across the Austrian Alps.

Schnitzel

Oh, what a little pounding can do. Take a thin slice of meat (for purists that means veal, though pork or chicken also earn a following), bash heartily into intoxicating thinness and bathe in a soft coat of breadcrumbs before sizzling to buttery perfection. Serve with slice of lemon, parsley potatoes and tart red berries. Enjoy with a glass of Gruner Veltliner and you’re on your way.

http://www.austria.info/us/basic-facts/austrian-cuisine/wiener-schnitzel

Strudel

A slice of heaven that needs no introduction, this multi-layered mound of magnificence is reason enough to travel to Austria. Heck, a good strudel is reason to live. Go for the apple and soon you’ll be diversifying to blueberry, cherry, poppy seed and Topfenstrudel – a comforting swirl of thin pastry and creamy sweet cheese.

http://www.austria.info/us/basic-facts/austrian-cuisine/apple-strudel

Kaiserschmarren

A delectable dish fit for a king or, in this case, an emperor. This messy more-ish mess of chopped sweetened eggs and jam has apocryphal associations with Austrian Emperor Franz Josef. Whichever story you believe, Schmarren is a colloquialism meaning a bit of nonsense or mishmash. Bring it on: we adore tucking into a whole hen’s work of eggs served in a searing hot frying pan, as a main course or perhaps more sensibly shared as dessert. But when it’s Kaiserschmarren we’re talking, who wants sensible?