Kaiserschmarrn

Method

1. Put the raisins and the rum in a small bowl and leave them at least 30 minutes, or overnight. Drain them before they go anywhere near the pan and keep the rum for the Röster.
2. Make the Zwetschgenröster first, because it wants to cool a little. Bring the sugar, water, lemon juice, cinnamon stick, and cloves to a boil in a small pot. Add the plums, cover, and cook at a bare simmer for 20 to 25 minutes. It is ready when the skins have loosened and the fruit is soft but still in recognisable pieces. Cooked to a purée it is apple sauce with a plum accent, which misses the point. Fish out the cinnamon stick and cloves and stir in the rum off the heat. Serve it warm or at room temperature.
3. Separate the eggs. Whisk the yolks with the milk, the vanilla sugar, the salt, and the lemon zest, then whisk in the sifted flour until smooth. Let it stand 15 minutes so the flour hydrates. The batter should be the thickness of pouring cream.
4. Beat the whites, adding the 40 g of sugar in a slow stream once they are foamy, to a soft, glossy, compact peak. Stop while the peak still nods over at the tip. Beaten dry, the whites break into lumps that will not fold in and you get white streaks through the finished Schmarrn.
5. Fold a third of the whites into the batter to slacken it, then fold in the rest in two goes with a spatula, cutting down and sweeping along the bottom. Stop the moment the last white streak disappears. Cook it immediately.
6. Heat the oven to 200°C. Put a 28 cm ovenproof skillet over medium heat and melt the clarified butter until it is foaming but not browning. Pour in the batter all at once and level it. It should hiss quietly, not spit. Too hot and the underside is dark before the middle has set; too cool and the whole thing turns grey and rubbery. Medium, and about 2 cm deep, is right.
7. Cook 3 to 4 minutes, until the underside is an even golden brown and the top has just lost its wet shine. Scatter the drained raisins over the surface now. Put them in the batter and they sink to the pan and scorch.
8. Slide the pan into the oven for 7 to 9 minutes. The top puffs and sets dry to the touch. A 4 egg batter is too thick to flip cleanly, and the oven sets the middle without pushing the base past golden.
9. Take the pan out, put it back on medium heat, and tear the pancake into rough pieces the size of a walnut with two forks or the edge of a wooden spatula. Tear, do not cut. Ragged torn edges are what hold the caramel. Even pieces cut with a knife slide out of it.
10. Push the pieces to one side, drop the butter into the bare metal, and scatter the 30 g of sugar over it. Let the sugar melt and go a pale amber, about 45 seconds, then toss the pieces through it and keep turning for 2 minutes until the edges are crisp and glazed. This step is the whole difference between Kaiserschmarrn and scrambled pancake, so do not skip it and do not be timid with the butter.
11. Tip onto warm plates, dust heavily with icing sugar, and serve at once with the Zwetschgenröster. It waits for nobody: within five minutes the caramel softens and the crisp edges go.

Notes

• On beating the egg whites. This is the argument in every Austrian kitchen and the sources do not all say the same thing. German Wikipedia describes the plain version as flour, milk, eggs, sugar, and salt beaten together, with the separated and folded version as the more elaborate one. The Austrian agriculture ministry’s own entry on Kaiserschmarren, part of its register of traditional foods, gives a recipe that beats the whites with sugar to a compact but supple snow and folds them in. So separating is not a modern lightening trick: it is in the official Austrian description of the traditional dish. What it is, is the refined version. The rustic Schmarrn the name descends from, a farmhouse and alpine dairy dish recorded since the sixteenth century, was beaten together in one bowl. Separate the eggs. The unseparated version is flat and closer to a torn crêpe, and once you have eaten the folded one you will not go back.
• Pan temperature, in plain terms. Medium. The butter should foam and stay pale. If the batter spits when it hits the pan, it is too hot. If nothing happens for ten seconds, it is too cool. Cast iron is ideal because it holds the heat when the cold batter lands; a thin pan drops temperature and steams the base.
• When to tear. After the oven, not before. Torn while the middle is still wet, the pieces weld back together into a doughy clump. Torn once it is set, they stay separate and take on the caramel.
• Do you need the oven? For a 2 egg batch in a small pan, no: cook one side, flip it in quarters with two spatulas, and finish on the stove. For this 4 egg batch in a 28 cm pan the batter sits about 2 cm deep, and flipping that is a mess. The oven is the reliable route.
• This is a main course in Austria, not only a dessert. The ministry states it plainly: Kaiserschmarren is served both as a sweet main course and as a dessert. Austrian Mehlspeisen occupy a place that has no English equivalent, a sweet dish eaten at lunch with nothing savoury before it. Portion it as four desserts or as two to three mains and adjust the Röster accordingly.
• The skillet is the constraint, not the servings. A 28 cm pan takes a 4 egg batter and no more. To feed six, cook two batches back to back rather than one deep one, or the middle never sets. Keep the first batch warm in a low oven, uncovered, and caramelise both together at the end.
• Zwetschgenröster is the classic partner, and it is worth making in September when the Zwetschgen are cheap. Use the same firm Italian prune plums as the Zwetschgenkuchen; Pflaumen collapse to purée in twenty minutes. Doubled and packed hot into sterilised jars it keeps months in a cool cupboard. Out of season, apple sauce is the standard alternative and no one in Austria will object.
• The name has nothing reliable to do with Emperor Franz Joseph. The ministry traces Schmarren more plausibly to Kaser, a dairy farmer, or to casa. Several imperial legends exist and none of them is documented. It is a good dish either way.

Sources used

• BMLUK Austria: Kaiserschmarren, traditionelle Lebensmittel
• Essen und Trinken: Kaiserschmarrn, das Originalrezept
• Grubhof: Der beste Kaiserschmarrn aus Österreich, Originalrezept
• Brotwein: Karamellisierter Kaiserschmarrn in der Pfanne gebacken
• Schlaraffenwelt: Der perfekte Kaiserschmarrn und sein Geheimnis
• Wikipedia: Kaiserschmarrn
• Gutekueche.at: Zwetschkenröster
• Dr. Oetker Österreich: Zwetschkenröster

Passt gut zu

• Apfelküchle
• Dampfnudeln
• Zwetschgenkuchen

Von Christoph Mayer