Salzburger Nockerl

In February this year we had a a friend from Germany visiting us, we met years ago in a choral group and have remained good friends ever since, even with the world separating us.  On this visit she made us this fabulous, delicious and super easy desert called Salzburger (as in Saltzburg) Nockerln (dumplings). She whipped it up without a recipe and I transcribed as she went and I meant to post it as soon as possible after her visit, but I lost the recipe and have been nagging her to send it to me and finally she has found the time, so now I am sharing it with you.

Salzburger Nockerl is a sweet dish typical of Austrian cuisine  that is especially popular in Salzburg, as its name implies. Its a Soufflé omelette baked in three’s on a large  dish and served hot with a sweetened strawberry (or fruit of your choice) flavoured cream or jam sauce.

How to make Salzburger Nockerln
Recipe is taken from Kochen, Die grosse Schule“ by Arnold Zabert

Ingredients:
6 large eggs (separate into 6 egg whites and 6 egg yolks)
50g fine white sugar
1 vanilla bean
40g white wheat flour
butter to grease the oven dish
2 table spoons of icing sugar to sprinkle on top

optional: fruits of your choice, like cherries, plums etc. (from a jar or tin)
Preheat the oven to 200

In a large bowl beat the egg yolks with 30g of the sugar for 5 minutes  with electric beaters until they are thick and creamy.

Cut the vanilla bean open and extract the pulp with a knife, then add the pulp to the egg yolks and spoon it in.

Beat the egg whites until they are very stiff, then add the rest of the sugar.

With a spatula carefully mix the stiff egg whites and the flour, spoon by spoon, into the egg yolks. Make sure you spoon as much air into the mixture as you can to make it very fluffy.

Grease an oven dish with a bit of butter. (Don´t choose the dish too big so the Nockerln will rise and don´t just cover the base.) With the spatula place 3 long pyramid shaped bits of the mixture into the dish (“Nockerln”), one next to the other, so they fill the whole dish.

Immediately put the Nockerln into the hot oven, bake for 15 minutes and don´t open the oven door in the process. The Nockerln are ready when they get a bit golden brown on top but are still soft inside.

Sprinkle the hot Nockerln with icing sugar (use a tea streamer) and serve immediately.

You can serve the Nockerln with heated up fruits (with a bit of their own juice) from a tin.

As I said above, this is an elegant, delicious and super easy dish to make for a dinner party, give it a try!