Central Europe · Volume 19, The Court, the Coffeehouse and the Alps Underneath It
Steirisches Backhendlsalat
Styria
An illustration of the dish, not a photograph of it cooked.
- Time
- 30 minutes
- Reviewed
- Not yet reviewed from inside the tradition
- Cooked
- Not yet cooked and reported
Styria. The lighter, warm-weather sibling of Vienna's own Backhendl, traditionally made with Sulmtaler chicken, a named heritage Styrian breed, and dressed with Styrian pumpkin seed oil, tying the province's two signature elements, a fried chicken tradition and its own celebrated oil, onto one plate. A useful direct comparison against the Vienna Backhendl above: same core method, different province, different finish.
As tradition built it
Serves 4. About 30 minutes.
Ingredients
- 1 chicken, jointed and cut into strips, or 4 breasts, sliced
- as for Backhendl flour, egg, fine breadcrumbs
- a generous depth, enough to shallow fry oil or lard, for frying
- a large handful, enough for 4 mixed leaves, ideally Vogerlsalat (lamb's lettuce)
- 2 tbsp for the dressing, plus a drizzle to finish Steirisches Kürbiskernöl
- a splash white wine vinegar; a scatter of pumpkin seeds (optional) white wine vinegar, pumpkin seeds (optional)
Method
- Flour, egg and crumb the chicken strips as for Backhendl.
- Fry in the oil or lard until golden and cooked through, around 6 to 8 minutes depending on thickness.
- Toss the leaves with a simple dressing of pumpkin seed oil, a little white wine vinegar and salt.
- Slice the warm fried chicken over the dressed leaves, drizzle a further thread of pumpkin seed oil across the top, and scatter with whole pumpkin seeds if using.
What a modern chef changes
Isolating the oil's aromatics properly, since the whole dish's point is a fat that must never meet heat
Rung 1
Method
- Confit the chicken strips gently before crumbing and flash-frying, the same logic as the Vienna Backhendl elevation above, separating the cooking of the meat from the building of the crust so the fry itself is brief and purely cosmetic.
- Never let the pumpkin seed oil approach the pan at any stage. This sounds obvious but is worth stating as a rule rather than an instinct: the oil's whole value is aromatic and it degrades under heat, so it belongs only in the dressing and the final drizzle, added once the plate is otherwise finished and off any residual pan heat.
- Toast a portion of whole pumpkin seeds separately, dry, in a pan, and grind half to a coarse dust in the spice grinder, scattering both the whole toasted seeds and the ground dust over the finished salad for a second, textural expression of the same pumpkin flavour that the oil itself carries in liquid form.