(Sorry for the question in English, I’m not Austrian and don’t speak German.)

I have this old cookbook featuring dishes from various countries. I’m wondering if this recipe (selected to represent Austria) is an actual dish eaten here (or if not, whether the techniques used are at least authentically “Austrian”).

by WoListin

18 comments

  1. We like our pike (Zander) a lot, but to serve it in such a sauce I’d say is not very Austrian. So I’d say neither the dish, nor the techniques are very authentic.

  3. i am not aware of a dish like that

    however, lake neusiedl is a lake in the easternmost region of austria which also has pike. the vegetables used, tomatoes, peppers and garlic are also typical for the region and are grown there. so its not a genuine dish from austria (at least to my knowledge), but it seems as if the author knows something about the region they tried to base it on.

  5. Never heard of it and not very typical. But it could maybe be an older a bit more fancy recipe for example from the Sacher cookbook.

  6. Love the Austrian setting. It looks very touristy.

    Except for the Schaumrollen (cream horns?) in the back. You get them in tourists spots too of course. But they are not the first thing that comes to mind as typical Austrian tourist thing. And many Austrians also love them.

    So I would say the Schaumrollen are the most typical Austrian dish on this picture.

    I crave fresh Schaumrollen now, damnit.

  7. No.

    Maybe the authors found it in a restaurant and liked it. It’s not a well-known, iconic dish. You would not typically find pike in a normal supermarket, nor would you find a violin on a dinner table. The pastries in the bowl on the top left look quite traditional.

    As for the ingredients: peperoni (sausage) is very uncommon here. Assuming that this is an adaptation of a local recipe, it was probably Hungarian salami. Sour cream was probably “Sauerrahm” or “Crème fraîche”.

  9. No it‘s not – the typical fish for the region is the pike-perch/walleye/zander/fogosch

    Only thing remotely similar would be a fish soup with paprika (Halászlé). If you order zander in the region it is usually fried with parsley potatoes.

  10. Yes, we only serve food with a Mozart statue and a violin plus some roses sprinkled around.

  11. That’s an odd dish

    Pike is eaten, it’s good, but it’s not really available other in special fish restaurants or if you catch it yourself.

    It’s not a signature dish and a more common traditional fish dish would be trout or pike perch. However I can see this is served in an old fashioned fish restaurants somewhere not following trends

  12. Even if most of us have never heard of it, it could be a very regional dish. Perhapse regional popular in the time of the cookbook and now forgotten.

    But it is not a common traditional recepie and probably rather new, because bacon, peperoni and fish all combined doesn’t seem like austrian style to me

  13. Probably not something you would find commonly in Austria. Fish and this many strong flavors in general is not very common here. Especially with bacon and mushrooms, and quite a heavy sauce. Maybe it was a dish a long time ago in a very regional area

  14. My best guess: It’s an adaptation of an Austrian recipe for an international audience. Especially because some measurements are in cups, which is not something you’d ever find in an Austrian cookbook.

  15. I never heard of this, I feel like a more typical fish for Austria would be trout, pike-perch or carp. Tbf though, I grew up in an entirely different region so this might be a niche thing I’m entirely unaware of.

  17. The dish does for sure still exist in Austria in some variation. Nothing in there is out of the place except the pepperoni. But as listed it defenitely feels old and not something you would easily find. So calling it an “authentic Austrian” dish might be a stretch. If someone wanted you to taste Austrian cuisine, even if its Pike, they would almost certainly not serve that.

    There just is too much going on in this recipe for a modern Austrian kitchen. Fish and bacon, sure you can find, fish in white sauce with mushrooms OR tomatoes, sure you can easily find it. But everything together at once is just a very old way of cooking. So it might be more authentic in the 70s but a lot of things found in a 70s Austrian cookbook aren’t close to what you would find people eating today.

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