Bring the winter sports home: here's how to make Kaiserschmarrn
Say wine, snacks or haute cuisine and the gourmands at online food magazine FavorFlav know where to drink, how to eat it and what to cook. This time our cheffies serve you: the recipe for Kaiserschmarrn.
Is it a pancake, is it a waffle? Is it a bit of everything? The Austrian Kaiserschmarrn (or Kaiserschmarren) is a great dish for breakfast, lunch, or as a dessert.
Preparation: 30 min
Servings: 4
INGREDIENTS
125 g flour
3 eggs
300 ml milk
30 g sugar
1 packet of vanilla sugar
30 grams raisins
50 g powdered sugar
two lumps of (clarified) butter
a splash of rum
a pinch of salt
For the topping:
Zwetschgenröster (plum compote)
powdered sugar
Is it a pancake, is it a waffle? Is it a bit of everything? The Austrian Kaiserschmarrn (or Kaiserschmarren) is a great dish for breakfast, lunch, or as a dessert.
Walking and eating
Confession: my name is Sharon and I love walking. There, I said it. Even more, I love good food. And that's how I ended up some time ago (before corona, thank goodness..) in the Austrian Tyrol. And for an excellent reason: the Culinary Jacobs Route. On this hiking route for food lovers, you walk from mountain hut to mountain hut, where you satisfy your hunger with dishes from international Michelin-starred chefs. Win, win, right?
Poor man's dish
You can't hike a mountain on a cracker, so I had a hearty and ultra-Tyrolean breakfast: with Kaiserschmarrn. In the past, Kaiserschmarrn, the dish made of milk, flour, and eggs that is best described as a very thick, fallen-apart pancake, was known as a poor man's dish. It was especially an ideal dish for shepherds who couldn't carry too much stuff during their trek to the mountain tops.
Kaiserschmarrn as I had it in Tyrol
Various stories circulate about the origin of Kaiserschmarrn. One story goes that one of the pastry chefs from the Imperial Kitchen made a light (huh?!) dessert of pancakes and plum compote for the always dieting Empress Sisi. Sisi thought it was just okay, but her husband, Emperor Franz Joseph, loved it. He ate his wife's pancake; it was, he said, the tastiest ‘mess’, referring to the fallen-apart state on his plate, that the cook had ever made.
Another story tells that the cook had made the batter too thick and the pancake had torn, upon which the emperor sent it back to the kitchen with the words: “So ein Schmarrn ist des Kaisers nicht wert!” Anyway, it is a delicious Tyrolean specialty – for any time of the day.
How to make Kaiserschmarrn
- Separate the eggs. Mix the yolks with the sugar, vanilla sugar, and a pinch of salt into a syrupy mass. Refine with a splash of rum. Gently fold in the sifted flour and the milk into the batter.
- Beat the egg whites until stiff and gently fold those into the dough as well.
- Place the pan over medium heat and melt a lump of (clarified) butter in it. Pour the batter into the pan and sprinkle the raisins on top. Put a lid on the pan and cook the Kaiserschmarrn over low heat until it is golden brown on one side.
- Flip it over, put the lid back on, and let it cook on the other side as well.
- Tear the Kaiserschmarrn into irregular pieces with a fork, add a bit more butter, and stir for another 5 minutes.
- Divide over 4 plates and generously sprinkle with powdered sugar.
The Kaiserschmarrn tastes best with lingonberry jam, applesauce, or cooked plum compote (Zwetschgenröster).
