🇦🇹 Austria · Vienna
RindsuppeAustrian beef broth
Austria's clear beef broth, simmered from boiling beef and bones with root vegetables and a browned onion, clarified, and served with a garnish (Einlage) such as semolina dumplings, liver dumplings, noodles, Frittaten or Backerbsen.
Origin and history
Viennese tourist sources call this clear beef soup Austria's national soup, and its many garnishes mean it never tastes quite the same twice. According to the Falter newspaper, by the 1970s Viennese restaurants offered only three Einlagen, Leberknödel, Backerbsen and noodles, and later cooks revived older, more elaborate ones from old cookbooks and from older inn cooks. The name Frittaten comes from the Italian frittata.
Make it at home
- Makes
- 6 servings
- Total time
- 2 h 45 min
- Hands-on
- 40 min
Ingredients
- 500 g1.1 lb boiling beef (Suppenfleisch), flank, brisket or chuck, cut in cubes
- 500 g1.1 lb beef soup bones, rinsed in cold water
- 2 litres2 quarts cold water
- 1 bunch of soup vegetables (Suppengrün), carrot, parsley root, celeriac, leek, peeled and chopped
- 1/2 onion, unpeeled, halved
- 3 egg whites, to clarify
- 250 ml1 cup cold water, for the egg whites
- salt, to taste
- 75 g1/2 cup + 1 tbsp plain flour, for the Frittaten garnish
- 125 ml1/2 cup milk, for the Frittaten
- 2 eggs, for the Frittaten
- 30 g2 tbsp clarified butter (Butterschmalz), for frying the Frittaten
- chives or parsley, chopped, to finish
Method
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1. Put the beef cubes in a large pot with 2 litres of cold water.
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2. Place the halved onion cut side down in a dry, well-used pan over medium heat and let it brown until deep golden or very dark.
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3. Add the bones, the vegetables and the browned onion to the pot.
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4. Bring to the boil, skimming off the foam, then simmer gently for about 2 hours.
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5. Let the soup cool a little and skim off the fat.
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6. Whisk the egg whites with 250 ml of cold water and stir them slowly into the soup.
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7. Simmer gently until the soup turns clear, as the egg white gathers the impurities.
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8. Strain through a clean kitchen towel set over a sieve and season with salt.
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9. For the garnish, whisk the flour, milk, eggs and a pinch of salt to a smooth thin batter.
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10. Fry 3 or 4 very thin pancakes in the clarified butter until golden on both sides.
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11. Roll each pancake up and slice it into fine strips with a sharp knife.
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12. Put the strips in warm soup plates, pour the hot clear broth over and sprinkle with chives or parsley.
Notes
- Here the soup is made as the clear broth the Viennese call Rindsuppe, served with Frittaten (strips of pancake) as the Einlage, or garnish. Many other Einlagen exist: Grießnockerl (semolina dumplings, which have their own page), Leberknödel, noodles, Backerbsen, Eierstich and Speckknödel.
- The browned unpeeled onion half gives the golden colour; the Sacher cookbook recipe adds that a piece of spleen or liver gives an even clearer soup. Longer cooking, as for a Tafelspitz where a whole 2 kg piece simmers in 3.5 litres of water, gives a richer broth, and the leftover broth is reheated for soups with Frittaten or Backerbsen.
- Serve the garnish in the plate and pour the broth over, so the garnish does not go soggy.
- Make-ahead: the clarified broth keeps 3 days in the fridge or freezes well; make the pancakes fresh.
Adapted from Wien Tourismus, Klassische Wiener Rindsuppe (from Das Neue Sacher-Kochbuch), Wien Tourismus, Frittaten, and Ganz Wien, Tafelspitz Wiener Art.
At the festivals
No festival we list has printed it on a menu yet.