Pleasure and culinary delights for Christmas Eve

In Upper Austria, Tirol and SalzburgerLand, traditional Christmas dishes are so popular that they are passed on from generation to generation. These include, among others, the sausage soup, the doughnuts or the brioches, which are part of the real classics. These dishes are often served on the evening of the 24th of December. Christmas Eve was a fasting day for a long time, so that only a simple dish came on the table at noon.

Christmas classics from Tirol

Sausage soup with lovage, pasta, root vegetables and beef

Ingredients for 4 people:

2 kg fleshy beef bones
1 small celeriac
Frankfurter sausages
2 carrots
2 yellow turnips
1 small celery
1 leeks
3 blackened onions
1 bunch chopped lovage branches
salt
1 tablespoon white peppercorns
1 teaspoon juniper berries
1 tsp pimento seeds
2 bay leaves
1 tbsp mustard seeds
1 tbsp coriander seeds

Blanch the beef bones and rinse with cold water, then re-place the bones in a large cooking pot with cold water. Bring to a boil. In the meantime, halve the onions and fry in a pan and let them turn almost black. Wash the root vegetables, peel, halve the celery, leave the remaining vegetables whole and add the spices to the cooking pot. Continue cooking until the meat is ready.
Cut the chives finely and add. Boil and add noodles and Frankfurter sausages (whole or sliced).

Christmas classics from SalzburgerLand

Sweet rolls (“Buchteln”)

approx. 15 – 20 pieces

The Buchteln, as described here, were once served as a feast on Christmas Eve in SalzburgerLand. To top them off, they were coated with a mixture of honey, milk and butter before serving. The best thing is to taste them while still warm. If there are any leftovers – which is rarely the case – they can also be eaten for breakfast.

Ingredients for 15 Buchteln

250 ml lukewarm milk
60 to 80 g butter
500 g wheat flour type 405 or Viennese semolina
30 g fresh yeast
1 tbsp of raw cane sugar
1 pinch of salt
Possibly 1 tbsp vanilla pudding powder
1 egg
grated peel of an organic lemon
1 shot of rum (at will)
a handful of sugar
Marmalade as desired (Zwetschke, blackcurrant, apricot, etc.) for the filling
120 to 150 g butter

Carefully heat the milk in a pot and melt the butter with it. Sprinkle a little flour into a large mixing bowl, stir in the yeast, add some sugar and the milk-butter mixture to form a dough. Cover it and let it rest until cracks have formed on the surface.
Then mix all the other ingredients such as salt, pudding powder, egg, lemon peel, rum and sugar and beat the dough until smooth or work with the kneading hooks of the hand mixer. Sprinkle some flour onto the dough and cover with a plate until the volume has doubled.
Then, with a tablespoon, separate the pieces and flatten them on a floured board. Place a teaspoon of jam in the centre of each piece of pastry and close the dough around the jam.
Let 120 to 150 grams of butter rinse in a bake-proof pot or a baking dish. Place each cage in it and place it in the pot with the dough lid down. The loosely sized bays should fill the casserole or pot.
Preheat the oven to 170 to 175 degrees Celcius. Let the Buchteln rest for 10 minutes and then bake in the oven for 25 minutes.
Serve warm with homemade apple compote.

Christmas classics from Upper Austria

Advent Duck with fir honey

Ingredients

1 farmer’s duck
salt
caraway seeds
marjoram
chopped duck bones
diced roots (carrots, celery, etc.)
shallots
chestnuts
orange peel
cinnamon stick
allspice
cloves
prunes
dried apples
fir branch
nut schnapps
red wine
duck stock (or water)

From the raw duck, remove the legs and breast with the bone, season with salt, cumin and marjoram. Sear it in a heavy pot and remove. Toast the chopped duck bones in the same pot until golden brown, add the diced roots, the shallots and chestnuts, the orange peel, cinnamon stick, allspice, cloves, prunes, dried apples and the small fir branch. Add the nut schnapps and red wine, infuse with duck stock (or water). Put the meat in it, let it cook covered on the stove. At the end, take the meat, vegetables and dried fruits out of the sauce.
Reduce the sauce, strain and season. Brush the meat with fir honey and let it brown a bit at top heat.
Arrange the duck pieces on the vegetables and the dried fruit and pour the sauce over it. Serve with bread dumplings.

Serve with a strong bock beer or a cider sparkling wine.

*) The recipes for Elisengingerbread, Buchteln and Kletzenbrot are taken from the baking book “Delicious by the millers” by Monika Drax and Franziska Lipp. Courtesy of the authors. The recipe for sausage soup comes from chef Erwin Werlbacher from Winterstellgut in Annaberg.