Recipe Sachergugelhupf

The borders between today’s Austria and its southern neighbours are particularly dissipating in Carinthia. Instead of drizzling with melted butter, here the famous ‘Kasnudel’ are topped with melted Sasaka: the word comes from the Slovenian language and simply means finely-diced bacon or a type of lardons. Besides being a wonderfully spicy spread for bread, it also figures prominently in Styrian cuisine, proving that the colorful culinary merry-go-round in the former territories of the Habsburg Monarchy is still vibrant today.

Ajdnek is a sort of cake or pogača. It is considered the best and the richest pastry typical in the Upper Savinjska Valley. Buckwheat flour dough and a filling made of walnuts, honey, vanilla sugar and cinnamon are a delicious match.

A vol-au-vent is the French name for a baked puff pastry batter. The name means ‘windblown’ and describes the lightness of the pastry. A round opening is cut in the top and the pastry cut out for the opening is replaced as a lid after the case is filled. In Flanders the pastry is filled with a chicken, meatball and mushroom sauce.

Autumn in Slovakia belongs to goose feasts, with their long tradition especially in the Small-Carpathian region. Breeding of geese and goose feasts in Slovakia have about a hundred year long tradition that is related to the southern regions of our country. The tradition of roasting goose came to Slovakia from German-speaking countries, especially Austria and Germany, where it is associated with the feast of St. Martin. In Slovakia, it was mainly established for economic reasons because selling roasted goose at the local markets was the activity of Slovak housewives, which in this way improved the household budget. Gourmets from various parts of the country began to search for places where the best goose came from (Chorvátsky and Slovenský Grob). Another reason for the emergence of this habit was just to the South of Slovakia with plenty of small rivers and brooks ideal conditions for breeding geese.