Comte Kaiserschmarrn with Brandy glaze, chives and plum compote

This week the schools are on what the spoiled privileged children of the Netherlands (not unlike myself) call "winter sport vacation". Originating as a catholic holiday celebrating carnival, it's become one of those weeks where the highways leading to the Alps fill up with cars (read: caravans) transporting Dutch people to snowy slopes. Bravely dressed in bright orange skiing gear we pretend to know what we're doing, though I can only imagine that the severe lack of altitude in our home country leaves us a rather loud embarrassment to the sport. My dear Austrian, Swiss, German, Italian and French friends: rest easy. You'll have the slopes all to yourselves this year.

Covid-19 might prevent us from traveling, but the bravery in pretending to know what we're doing on the slopes can very well be translated into bravely pretending to know what we're doing in the kitchen. And this week we’re doing Kaiserschmarrn. Thankfully the unpronounceability of this dish has, as of yet, not influenced its flavor, and I'm telling you boys and girls this shit is good. You know that first pancake you make that just becomes a sad mess? Leave it to the Austrians and Germans to engineer their way out of it by scrambling the pancake all together. Scrambled pancakes. How ingenious. My version is savory instead of the traditional sweet version, partly because the traditional version has raisins in it and we all know that raisins solely exist to disappoint you about the fact that they're not chocolate chips, and partly because I saw an opportunity to add cheese to a dish and well, I effin grabbed that didn't I.

Ingredients #

Ingredients for 2 (or 4 if you’re not really hungry and just snacking away)

• 3 large eggs, divided into yolks and whites
• 50g salted butter (melted) + some to fry in
• 2 tablespoons of granulated sugar
• 1 teaspoon of salt
• Black pepper
• 200gr Comte cheese
• 120g flour
• 240ml milk
• Brandy
• Icing sugar
• Chives
• Optional but strongly recommended: a tangy fruit compote, we used plum compote with some black pepper and sea salt grinded into it which was delightful!

Method #

1. Separate the egg yolks from the whites and set the yolks aside. In a bowl of a stand mixer, with a hand mixer, or if you’re in it for the grind with your blood sweat and tears whip your egg whites until stiff peaks form. Transfer them to a different bowl and put them aside for now.

2. In the now empty again bowl of your stand mixer add the yolks, melted butter, sugar, salt and some freshly ground black pepper. Mix until combined, 2-3 minutes.

3. While mixing your goodz on a low speed slowly add your milk and flour preventing any lumps from forming. Once all that’s been mixed through grate in your Comte cheese, and gently fold in your beaten egg whites. The egg whites are here to make things “light” and fluffy, which is a challenge when there’s 200g of cheese involved, so don’t overmix your batter at this point.

4. Heat up a large cast iron skillet (or non stick) over low to medium heat and add some butter to it. Once the butter is melted and the pan is warm pour your batter into the pan. Yes, this is one enormously thick boi pancake, but remember it’s gonna get scrambled so no stress.

5. Cook your batter until it starts to set slightly at the top and the bottom is golden brown and crissssp. This will take some time, maybe around 10 minutes, so go at it slowly and with low heat because you want to get a chance to cook most of the batter through without burning the bottom.

6. Since we do want browning on both sides we are going to flip this beast. I’ve found it easiest to cut the pancake up into quarters and flip those. Again: if this gets a bit messy, which it sure did for me, it doesn’t matter.

7. Once you’ve flipped your gi-normous pancake make sure to get some color and crisp on the bottom before taking two forks to break your beautiful creation up in bite sized pieces. Fry the pieces with some extra butter, tossing them around to crisp them up on all sides.

8. Dust your scramble with a few hits of icing sugar and pour in a bit of Brandy. If you want, flambee your Brandy (carefully ffs) with a match/lighter/gas-stove and toss your Kaiserschmarrn around in the pan to coat them with a glossy glaze of booze and sugar.

If you’re looking to brunch it upppp this weekend give this beauty a GO! It’s easy, there’s plenty of cheese, you get to play with fire, all the good stuff. Yeah it’d probably be more fun to eat it on the slopes in the Alps but at least you won’t have to suffer through trying to pronounce it.