Chef Elsa
Apfelkren
Freshly grated horseradish folded with tart apple and lemon, the cold, sharp sauce that belongs beside every plate of Tafelspitz in Vienna and has done for as long as anyone can remember.
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Paradeissauce (Austrian Tomato Sauce)
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Austria's roux-thickened tomato sauce, scented with dried marjoram and balanced with a pinch of sugar. The quiet backbone of a dozen classic dishes, from Fleischlaibchen to gefüllte Paprika.
Sauces & Condiments
Austrian
Weeknight
Batch Cooking
15 min
Active Time
35 min cook•50 min total
Yield4 servings (approximately 500ml)
Austrians don't say Tomate. They say Paradeiser. Paradise apple. That alone tells you something about how this country feels about tomatoes.
Paradeissauce was one of the first things I learned to make properly at GAFA in Vienna, and I remember being surprised by how different it was from Italian tomato sauce. There's no basil. No long reduction. No olive oil. You start with butter and a little flour, build a light roux, add your onion, then the tomatoes, and you season it with dried marjoram. That's the flavor that makes this Austrian. If you taste a tomato sauce and your brain says Vienna instead of Naples, it's the marjoram doing the talking.
Gretel always said that Austrian cooking hides its intelligence in simplicity. Paradeissauce is a perfect example. The roux gives the sauce body without heaviness. The pinch of sugar isn't sweetness, it's balance, coaxing the tomatoes into cooperation with the marjoram. A splash of vinegar at the end wakes everything up. You pass it through a sieve or blend it smooth, and what you have is a sauce so clean and rounded that it makes everything it touches better.
This is the sauce that sits beside Fleischlaibchen on a Wednesday night. It fills gefüllte Paprika. It gets ladled over boiled beef when you want something brighter than horseradish. It's good Austrian home cooking, the kind that doesn't announce itself but that you'd miss terribly if it weren't there.
The Austrian word Paradeiser derives from Paradiesapfel, 'paradise apple,' the name given to tomatoes when they arrived in Central Europe from the New World in the 16th century. While the rest of the German-speaking world eventually adopted the French-influenced Tomate, Austria kept the older word, and it remains a point of quiet linguistic pride. Roux-thickened sauces like Paradeissauce reflect the strong French influence on Habsburg court cooking, filtered through centuries of Viennese kitchen practice into something distinctly Austrian. The use of dried marjoram as the primary herb, rather than basil or oregano, places this sauce firmly in the Central European tradition.
The technique, the tradition, and the story behind every dish.
Discover Culinary ExplorerIngredients
unsalted butter
Quantity
40g
onion
Quantity
1 medium
finely diced
carrot
Quantity
1 small
finely grated
plain flour
Quantity
1 tablespoon
canned whole peeled tomatoes
Quantity
800g
beef stock or vegetable stock
Quantity
250ml
dried marjoram
Quantity
1 teaspoon
bay leaf
Quantity
1
granulated sugar
Quantity
1 teaspoon
white wine vinegar
Quantity
1 teaspoon
salt and freshly ground black pepper
Quantity
to taste
| Ingredient | Quantity |
|---|---|
| unsalted butter | 40g |
| onionfinely diced | 1 medium |
| carrotfinely grated | 1 small |
| plain flour | 1 tablespoon |
| canned whole peeled tomatoes | 800g |
| beef stock or vegetable stock | 250ml |
| dried marjoram | 1 teaspoon |
| bay leaf | 1 |
| granulated sugar | 1 teaspoon |
| white wine vinegar | 1 teaspoon |
| salt and freshly ground black pepper | to taste |
Equipment Needed
- •Heavy-bottomed saucepan (2-liter)
- •Fine-mesh sieve or stick blender
- •Wooden spoon
Instructions
- 1
Build the roux
Melt the butter in a heavy-bottomed saucepan over medium heat. When it foams, add the diced onion and grated carrot. Cook gently, stirring now and then, until the onion turns soft and translucent. About five minutes. You don't want any color here. If the onion starts to brown, your heat is too high. Turn it down. Sprinkle the flour over the softened vegetables and stir it in. Cook for one minute, stirring constantly. The flour should coat everything evenly and smell faintly nutty. This is your roux, and it's what gives Austrian tomato sauce its characteristic body. Italian sauces reduce for thickness. Austrian sauces use flour. Different tradition, different result.
The roux must stay blond. If it darkens past pale gold, the sauce will taste toasty instead of clean. Keep the heat gentle and keep stirring. - 2
Add the tomatoes
Pour in the canned tomatoes with all their juice. Break them up roughly with your spoon as they hit the pan. Add the stock and stir well, making sure the roux dissolves into the liquid without lumps. If you spot any, press them against the side of the pan with the back of your spoon. They'll give up. Bring everything to a gentle simmer.
If you're making this in high summer with ripe garden tomatoes, use a kilo of fresh ones, roughly chopped. You may need a little more stock since fresh tomatoes vary in juice. Taste as you go. - 3
Season and simmer
Add the dried marjoram, bay leaf, sugar, and a good pinch of salt. Stir once. Let the sauce simmer uncovered over low heat for twenty-five to thirty minutes, stirring occasionally to keep it from catching on the bottom. The sauce will thicken as it cooks and the tomatoes will break down completely. Your kitchen will start to smell like marjoram and warm butter. That's exactly right.
Dried marjoram is correct here, not fresh. The dried herb has a warmer, more concentrated flavor that melds into the sauce as it simmers. Fresh marjoram is too grassy for this. - 4
Blend smooth
Remove the bay leaf. Pass the sauce through a fine-mesh sieve, pressing firmly with the back of a ladle to push everything through. Or use a stick blender and blitz until smooth. The traditional method is the sieve, and it gives you a silkier result because it catches any fibrous bits the blender would just chop smaller. But both work. You want a sauce that coats a spoon in a clean, even layer.
- 5
Finish and adjust
Return the sauce to the pan over low heat. Stir in the white wine vinegar. Taste. Adjust the salt, add a grind of black pepper, and consider whether it needs another pinch of sugar. The sauce should taste bright and rounded, tomato-forward with that warm marjoram undertone. The vinegar should sharpen the edges without announcing itself. If you can taste vinegar, you've added too much. If the sauce tastes flat, it needs more. Serve warm. Mahlzeit!
Chef Tips
- •Don't substitute oregano for marjoram. They're related but they are not the same. Oregano is sharper and more aggressive. Marjoram is warmer and sweeter. This distinction is the difference between an Austrian sauce and a Mediterranean one.
- •The pinch of sugar is not about making the sauce sweet. Tomatoes, especially canned ones, carry a sharp acidity that can overwhelm the marjoram. The sugar rounds that edge off. If your tomatoes are perfectly ripe summer fruit, you may not need it at all. Taste first.
- •This sauce freezes beautifully. I make a double batch every time and freeze half in 250ml portions. On a Wednesday night when you're making Fleischlaibchen, reaching into the freezer for Paradeissauce instead of opening a jar will change your dinner.
- •If you're serving this with boiled beef, thin the sauce slightly with a ladle of the cooking broth. It should pool on the plate, not sit in a lump.
Advance Preparation
- •Paradeissauce keeps in the fridge for up to five days and improves on the second day as the marjoram settles in.
- •Freeze in 250ml portions for up to three months. Thaw overnight in the fridge and reheat gently, adding a splash of stock if it has thickened.
Frequently Asked Questions
Nutrition Information
1 serving (about 130g)
Calories
145 calories
Total Fat
9 g
Saturated Fat
5 g
Trans Fat
0 g
Unsaturated Fat
3 g
Cholesterol
20 mg
Sodium
670 mg
Total Carbohydrates
15 g
Dietary Fiber
3 g
Sugars
9 g
Protein
3 g
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