Tafelspitz

Ingredients

• Beef rump — in one piece1.8 kg
• Marrow bones500 g
• Carrots3
• Celeriac200 g
• Leek1
• Onions2
• Bay leaves2
• Black peppercorns10
• Grated horseradish100 g
• Apples2
• Chives30 g
• Potatoes800 g
• Butter60 g
• Salt and pepperto taste

Salt and spices grow more slowly than the rest: doubling a dish does not double the pepper.

Weight converts to ounces and volume to cups. Grams of flour are not turned into cups, because that depends on how tightly it is packed.

Method

1. 1

   Boil three litres of water with the root vegetables, bay and peppercorns and lower the beef into it.

   20 min

2. 2

   Skim, and hold it just below a simmer for two and a half hours, never letting it bubble.

   155 min

3. 3

   Halve the onions and char the cut faces black on a dry pan; they give the broth its colour.

   10 min

4. 4

   Add the charred onion and the marrow bones to the pot for the last hour.

   6 min

5. 5

   Grate the apples and mix them with the horseradish; that is Apfelkren, and it is made just before serving.

   10 min

6. 6

   Boil the potatoes, slice them and fry them in butter until browned.

   25 min

7. 7

   Slice the meat across the grain, serve the broth separately and the meat with the horseradish, potatoes and chives.

   12 min

About the dish

The meat goes into boiling water rather than cold. The surface protein sets at once, the juices stay in and the broth comes out clear — a cold start does the opposite.

The broth never boils, not for a minute. The surface should only tremble: any rolling boil makes the meat stringy and clouds the liquid.

It comes in three services: broth with pancake noodles first, then the meat with its sauces, and that is Viennese coffee-house order rather than restaurant invention. Emperor Franz Joseph ate tafelspitz almost daily.

Worth knowing

• — Slice the meat strictly across the grain and thin. Along it, it eats tough even after three hours.
• — Make the apple horseradish at the last moment. Within half an hour the apple darkens and the horseradish loses almost all its heat.
• — Salt the broth only at the end. Reduced over three hours it concentrates, and salted early it turns salty long before the meat is done.

Nutrition

Per serving at the base yield, calculated from the ingredients rather than measured in a lab.

Calories

680 kcal

Protein

58 g

Fat

32 g

Carbs

38 g

More from Austria

• Wiener Schnitzel — Veal beaten to three millimetres, crumbed and fried in plenty of fat until the coating puffs away.
• Apfelstrudel — Apples with cinnamon and raisins in a dough stretched until it is transparent. It is pulled by hand, never rolled.
• Sachertorte — A dense chocolate sponge with apricot jam under a mirror chocolate glaze.