Austrian Tafelspitz + Colombian Ajiaco
🍳 Today’s culinary picks:
🇦🇹 Austrian Tafelspitz
Vienna’s imperial dish—tender boiled beef served with crispy shredded potatoes, apple-horseradish sauce, and spinach purée. Franz Luise’s favorite. Simplicity perfected.
Ingredients:
- Beef tenderloin or top round (Tafelspitz) — 1.2 kg
- Beef bones for broth — 500 g
- Carrots — 2
- Parsley root — 1
- Celery root — ½
- Onions — 2 (one studded with cloves)
- Bay leaves — 2
- Black peppercorns — 8
- Salt — to taste
- Green onions — for garnish
For apple-horseradish sauce (Apfelkren):
- Tart apple — 2
- Fresh grated horseradish — 2 tbsp
- Sugar — 1 tsp
- Apple cider vinegar — 1 tbsp
- Salt — pinch
For shredded potatoes (Bratkartoffeln):
- Boiled potatoes — 600 g
- Butter — 3 tbsp
- Onion — 1
- Salt, pepper — to taste
Preparation:
- Place beef and bones in a large pot with cold water. Bring to a boil over medium heat—slowly, no rushing. Skim off foam.
- Add chopped vegetables, clove-studded onion, bay leaves, and peppercorns. Reduce to low heat. Simmer 2–2.5 hours without boiling (the broth should “smile”—gentle shimmer).
- Remove meat, wrap in foil. Strain the broth—this is your soup base for the week.
- Apfelkren sauce: Peel and finely grate apples, mix with horseradish, sugar, vinegar, and salt.
- Shredded potatoes: Dice boiled potatoes. Sauté in butter with onions until golden and crisp.
- Slice meat against the grain. Serve with shredded potatoes, spinach purée, Apfelkren sauce, and sprinkle with green onions.
💡 Fact: Tafelspitz is the only boiled meat dish the Austrian imperial kitchen deemed worthy of the emperor’s table. In Vienna, restaurants still serve the broth as a first course and the meat as a second. Archduke Franz Ferdinand ate it every Sunday.
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🇨🇴 Colombian Ajiaco
Bogotá’s national soup—a thick chicken stew with three types of potatoes that melt into an unmistakable creamy texture. Colombian comfort food you can’t refuse on a cold day.
Ingredients:
- Chicken thighs — 4 (bone-in, skin-on)
- Papa criolla potatoes (small, yellow) — 300 g (or substitute with regular small potatoes)
- Papa pastusa potatoes (white, starchy) — 300 g
- Papa sabanera potatoes (red) — 300 g (or any red variety)
- Corn (cobs, cut into pieces) — 2
- Guasca (Colombian herb) — handful of fresh or 2 tbsp dried (substitute with cilantro + dill)
- Heavy cream (20%) — 100 ml for serving
- Avocado — 1 for serving
- Capers — 2 tbsp for serving
- Onion — 1 large
- Garlic — 4 cloves
- Salt, pepper — to taste
Preparation:
- Boil chicken thighs in 2 liters of salted water with onion and garlic until cooked (~40 minutes). Remove chicken, shred meat off bones, strain broth.
- Dice the three potato types: small ones whole, starchy ones in large chunks, red ones in medium cubes.
- Return potatoes to broth. The starchy potatoes will break down and naturally thicken the soup. Simmer 30–35 minutes over medium heat, stirring occasionally—some potatoes should “dissolve.”
- Add corn and guasca (or cilantro + dill). Simmer another 10 minutes.
- Return chicken meat. Season with salt and pepper.
- Serve in deep bowls: soup topped with a spoonful of cream, avocado slices, and capers.
💡 Fact: The three potato varieties in Ajiaco aren’t excess—they’re engineering. The small papa criolla dissolves completely and acts as “glue,” the starchy papa pastusa creates creaminess, and the red papa sabanera holds its shape. Each plays a structural role. Colombia is the birthplace of potatoes, and the country grows over 400 varieties.
