Austrian cuisine

There is a lovely range of foods in Austria, many of which will be familiar in countries all over the world.

For example many supermarkets will sell main meal items like Wiener Schnitzel (a thin, breaded, pan-fried veal cutlet) or ready meals like Gulasch – although often this will be the Hungarian version.

However the key items that really appeal to me are the pastries and desserts. Like the famous Apfelstrudel (pastry filled with apples, cinnamon and raisons) or the Sachertorte (a chocolate cake filled with apricot jam).

But if I think about Austrian cuisine then the key item I remember (when going skiing in Serfaus ) was the Heisse Liebe recipe shown below. It’s great not only in the winter but lovely on a warm summers day.

How to make warm raspberry sauce for ice cream (Heisse Liebe)

Ingredients:

• 250 gram raspberries – either fresh or frozen (see note below)
• 100 gram jam sugar
• 3 tbsp lemon juice (1/2 a lemon)

Equipment

• 1 saucepan

Instructions

• Squeeze the lemon juice and (if required) defrost the raspberries.
• Add all the ingredients into the sauceplan and heat to boiling.
• Boil for 3 minutes, stirring regularly.
• Let it cool for a little while to help it thicken.

How to serve

Put 3 balls of ice cream in a bowl and pour over the warm sauce. Optionally add some whipped cream on top.

3 key items when making Heisse liebe:

Item 1 – The Raspberries

When not in season frozen raspberries are the easy option. Simply remove what you need from the freezer beforehand and let them thaw to room temperature.

Or some fresh summer raspberries are available from June onwards, or alternatively it’s a lot of fun to harvest wild raspberries in the autumn.

Either option will work in this recipe.

Item 2 – The adult version?

Item 3 – The ice cream

There are many different types of ice cream. When buying ice cream the key to focus on are the ingredients. Often they simple won’t contain ‘cream’ but are made with vegetable fat and loads of added chemicals.

2 easy tips for selecting ice cream:

1. The obvious one – look at the ingredient label
2. Weigh it with your hands – if you lift a tub up in the supermarket and compare it with others you will feel a real difference. The ‘cheapo’ ones will have loads of air and stabilisers. The better ones will be heavier with more natural ingredients.

When eating you will taste the difference.

The country recipe challenge.

This recipe is part of my country recipe challenge, where I am trying to find 1 recipe from each country in the world.

The easiest way to keep updated is to follow me on either my Instagram or Facebook page.