Food & Recipes from the Alps

Travelling to the Alps, you will enjoy the lovely mountainscape, nice people and of course the lovely food. In this section of our MiaDeRoca-Magazine we will present you typical local recipies. Recipes for things to drink and things to eat, a wide variety of dishes with meat, with vegetabels and the so called "Mehlspeisen". "Mehlspeisen" are dishes with flour, sweet meals like the "Kaiserschmarrn", "Palatschinken" or "Topfenknödel".
You won't be able to get all the traditional ingredients everywhere, but in cases the products are rare, we will mention some alternatives. And if you still doubt, just drop us a line, we will try to help you to get some Alpine savour to your lunch or dinner.

 

Brotzeit: Erdäpfelkas, potato spread

Brotzeit 1 - "Brotzeit", that is, in many regions of Bavaria and Austria the snack-time, depending on the region it can be the morning snack, or the afternoon only, so either a brunch or equivalent to 5 o'clock tea.

For "Brotzeit" you get, as the name says bread, "Brotzeit" meaning "bread time". And because bread alone is so dry, there is usually something delicious to cover it like cheese maybe a spread or sausage. For our "Brotzeit" series, we want to introduce you to some typical spread which are more or less homogeneous masses, on the basis of mostly vegetables and dairy products, making bread even more delicious.

One of the spreads, the easiest to prepare, is the "Erdäpfelkas", a delicious potato spread, also known as "Kartofelkäse" (potato cheese), "Kartoffelkas", my grandma referred to it as "Eräpfikas".

You need for the basic recipe:
4 large potatoes for mashing
¼ l sour cream
For seasoning:
a little caraway
Salt
Chives to garnish

Boil the potatoes, then peel and mash, season with salt and caraway and then add sour cream to the cooled potatoes.
From this basic recipe, there are quite a few variations. If you do not have sour cream, you can use it with so-called "Topfen" or "Quark" and a little yoghurt, and many enter into the basic recipe and 1 tablespoon butter or a shot of cream / cream / whipped. You can also use cream cheese, but mix it with some yoghurt.
Who does not like it too creamy can cut a small onion, or 2-3 cloves garlic, or gherkin. The spread will get richer if you add a boiled egg cut into small cubes.
Some like as spice some paprika and a pinch of curry.

Home to the "Erdäpfelkas" are rural regions of Austria, some see as a typical Upper-Austrian others as Tyrolean. We don't mind at all, it is a yummy spread and compared with butter, soft cheese or cream cheese low in calories.

 

 

13.10.2008. 13:37