Chef Elsa
Blunzenaufstrich (Blood Sausage Spread)
Dark, spiced, and wickedly good: Blunzn mashed with onion, mustard, and marjoram into the kind of spread that disappears first from every Heuriger Brettl, scooped up on torn hunks of dark bread.
Culinary Explorer
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Almjause (Alpine Hut Snack Board)
Created by
A wooden board loaded with mountain cheese, juniper-smoked Speck, air-dried Hauswürstel, handmade Liptauer, fresh Kren, and thick-cut Bauernbrot, the way Austrian Almhütten have fed hikers for generations.
Appetizers & Snacks
Austrian
Outdoor Dining
Picnic
30 min
Active Time
0 min cook•30 min total
Yield4 servings
On childhood trips to Austria with Gretel and my grandmother Eva, we'd hike to an Almhütte above the Salzkammergut and sit down at a wooden table that had seen fifty years of elbows. The Sennerin, the dairymaid who ran the hut, would bring out a board. Nothing fancy. Cheese she'd made that morning from the cows grazing twenty meters away. Speck from the farm below. Butter so fresh it was still pale. Dark bread. Radishes. That was it. I remember Gretel pointing at the board and telling me: this is the truest cooking in Austria. No technique, no recipe. Just people who know their ingredients.
Almjause means 'alpine snack,' and it's what you eat at a mountain hut after a hike. The word Jause itself is old Viennese for a between-meals bite, something to keep you going. At altitude, after three hours of walking, it becomes the best meal of your life. The cheese is Almkäse or Bergkäse, a firm alpine cheese made from the milk of cows that eat wildflowers and mountain grass. The Speck is Tyrolean, smoked with juniper and beech, then air-dried in cold mountain air until the fat turns translucent and the lean goes deep ruby. The butter tastes like butter used to taste before we forgot what butter was.
You don't need to hike to earn this. Make it at home on a Saturday afternoon. Lay everything on a wooden board, pour some wine, and sit with people you like. The principle is the same whether you're at 1,800 meters or in your kitchen: choose good things, put them together simply, and let them be what they are. Gretel always said the hardest thing in cooking is knowing when to stop. This board is a lesson in exactly that.
The Almjause tradition is rooted in Austria's alpine dairy farming culture, where Sennerinnen (dairymaids) spent summers at high-altitude huts tending cattle and making cheese from fresh milk. When hikers and farmers arrived at the hut, they were fed from whatever the Alm produced: fresh cheese, butter, cured meats stored from the valley, and bread brought up the mountain. The practice of opening Almhütten to hikers as informal restaurants became widespread in the Tyrol, Salzburg, and Styria by the late 19th century, and today a proper Almjause remains a protected regional food tradition, with many huts still making their own Almkäse on site.
The technique, the tradition, and the story behind every dish.
Discover Culinary ExplorerIngredients
Bergkäse or Almkäse
Quantity
200g
cut in thick wedges
Tiroler Speck
Quantity
150g
sliced thin
Hauswürstel or Landjäger
Quantity
150g
sliced on the diagonal
unsalted alpine butter
Quantity
100g
cold from the fridge
dark Bauernbrot (farmer's rye bread)
Quantity
1 loaf
thickly sliced
Topfen (quark or farmer's cheese)
Quantity
250g
softened butter (for Liptauer)
Quantity
80g
sweet Hungarian paprika
Quantity
1 tablespoon
caraway seeds
Quantity
1 teaspoon
lightly crushed
capers
Quantity
1 tablespoon
finely chopped
white onion
Quantity
2 tablespoons
finely diced
Dijon mustard
Quantity
1 teaspoon
salt and black pepper
Quantity
to taste
Gurkerl (cornichons or pickled gherkins)
Quantity
6 small
red radishes
Quantity
1 bunch
halved
fresh Kren (horseradish)
Quantity
1 small piece
for grating
fresh chives
Quantity
1 tablespoon
chopped
| Ingredient | Quantity |
|---|---|
| Bergkäse or Almkäsecut in thick wedges | 200g |
| Tiroler Specksliced thin | 150g |
| Hauswürstel or Landjägersliced on the diagonal | 150g |
| unsalted alpine buttercold from the fridge | 100g |
| dark Bauernbrot (farmer's rye bread)thickly sliced | 1 loaf |
| Topfen (quark or farmer's cheese) | 250g |
| softened butter (for Liptauer) | 80g |
| sweet Hungarian paprika | 1 tablespoon |
| caraway seedslightly crushed | 1 teaspoon |
| capersfinely chopped | 1 tablespoon |
| white onionfinely diced | 2 tablespoons |
| Dijon mustard | 1 teaspoon |
| salt and black pepper | to taste |
| Gurkerl (cornichons or pickled gherkins) | 6 small |
| red radisheshalved | 1 bunch |
| fresh Kren (horseradish)for grating | 1 small piece |
| fresh chiveschopped | 1 tablespoon |
Equipment Needed
- •Large wooden Brettl or cutting board (40cm or larger)
- •Small earthenware crock or bowl for Liptauer
- •Sharp knife for cheese and bread
- •Fine grater for horseradish
Instructions
- 1
Make the Liptauer
In a bowl, beat the Topfen and softened butter together with a fork until smooth and creamy. You're not whipping it. You're working two fats together until they stop arguing and become one thing. Add the paprika, crushed caraway, chopped capers, diced onion, and mustard. Season with salt and pepper. Mix until the spread turns a warm, earthy orange from the paprika. Taste it. It should be sharp from the capers, warm from the caraway, and just a little sweet from the paprika. Adjust whatever needs adjusting.
Use proper Hungarian sweet paprika, not the decorative stuff that's been sitting in a tin for two years. Good paprika smells warm and fruity the moment you open it. If yours smells like dust, replace it. - 2
Prepare the bread
Cut the Bauernbrot into thick slices, about a centimeter and a half. This is not delicate finger-food bread. It's the kind of bread that holds up when you load it with butter and cheese and press down. If you can find a real sourdough rye, dense and dark with a thick crust, that's what you want. Austrian Bauernbrot has a chew and a tang to it that supermarket rye can't touch.
If you can't find proper dark rye Bauernbrot, a good sourdough with a firm crumb is your best substitute. Avoid anything soft or sliced. This bread needs to do physical work on the board. - 3
Slice the cheese and meats
Cut the Bergkäse into thick, generous wedges. Not paper-thin deli slices. You want pieces substantial enough that you can break a bit off with your hands and eat it with bread. Slice the Speck thinly, though. Tiroler Speck is dense and intensely flavored, juniper-smoked and air-cured for months in mountain air. Thin slices let you appreciate the fat and lean together without it overwhelming the bite. Cut the Hauswürstel on the diagonal so you get long oval slices that show off the cross-section.
- 4
Prepare the garnishes
Halve the radishes lengthwise. They should be crisp and cold, a sharp little bite between the rich cheese and cured meats. Set the Gurkerl out whole or halved. Grate a small mound of fresh Kren onto a dish. Fresh horseradish hits differently from the jarred kind. It clears your head and cuts through the richness of the Speck like nothing else can. If your eyes water a little while you grate it, that's how you know it's fresh.
- 5
Assemble the Brettljause
This is not architectural plating. This is abundance on a board. Use a large wooden Brettl, a cutting board, or any broad, flat surface that looks like it belongs on a farmhouse table. Set the butter in one piece on the board, not in curls, not whipped. A cold block of good butter with a knife beside it. Mound the Liptauer in a small earthenware crock or bowl and scatter the chopped chives on top. Arrange the cheese wedges, Speck slices, and Hauswürstel in generous clusters, not neat rows. Tuck the radishes and Gurkerl into the gaps. Set the Kren in its own small dish. Lay the bread slices overlapping along one side or pile them in a basket beside the board.
Leave space between the clusters so people can reach in without dismantling the whole thing. An Almjause is communal. Everyone eats from the same board with their hands. That's the point. - 6
Serve with confidence
Bring the board to the table with nothing else. No dipping sauces, no chutneys, no complicated accompaniments. Set out a bottle of cold Grüner Veltliner or a few Krügerl of Austrian beer. The food speaks because every single thing on that board is good on its own. Your job was to choose well and lay it out honestly. Mahlzeit!
Chef Tips
- •The quality of this board lives and dies by your sourcing. Seek out a proper aged alpine cheese from a cheesemonger. Austrian Bergkäse, Swiss Gruyère, or an aged Comté will serve you better than anything pre-sliced from a supermarket shelf. The cheese should smell like grass and have a firm, slightly granular texture that breaks apart in your fingers.
- •Tiroler Speck is not bacon and it's not prosciutto. It's smoked and cured, which makes it unique. If you can find it at a good deli or European import shop, buy it. If you can't, a high-quality smoky Schwarzwälder Schinken or even good bresaola will sit well on the board, though they'll taste different.
- •Bring the cheese and butter out of the fridge fifteen minutes before serving. Cold deadens flavor. You want the Bergkäse at cool room temperature so the fat softens and the full flavor comes forward. The butter should be firm enough to slice but soft enough to spread on bread without tearing it.
- •Liptauer keeps for three days in the fridge and actually improves overnight as the caraway and paprika settle into the Topfen. Make it the day before if you can.
Advance Preparation
- •Liptauer can and should be made a day ahead. The flavors deepen overnight in the fridge. Bring to cool room temperature before serving.
- •Gurkerl and radishes can be prepped and stored in cold water in the fridge for up to a day.
- •The full board should be assembled no more than thirty minutes before serving. Speck dries out and cheese sweats if they sit too long.
Frequently Asked Questions
Nutrition Information
1 serving (about 415g)
Calories
1110 calories
Total Fat
73 g
Saturated Fat
40 g
Trans Fat
1 g
Unsaturated Fat
32 g
Cholesterol
205 mg
Sodium
2510 mg
Total Carbohydrates
59 g
Dietary Fiber
6 g
Sugars
5 g
Protein
50 g
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