Chef Elsa
Eiersalat (Austrian Egg Salad)
Cool, creamy Austrian egg salad with sour gherkins and tart apple in a mustard-yogurt dressing, the kind of honest Jause food that tastes like an Austrian Easter table and works beautifully all year round.
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Steirischer Wurstsalat mit Kernöl
Created by
Extrawurst strips and thin-sliced onions dressed with cider vinegar and drizzled with Styria's dark, nutty Kürbiskernöl. Cold, simple, and so purely Styrian you can taste the postcode.
Salads
Austrian
Outdoor Dining
Picnic
15 min
Active Time
0 min cook•45 min total
Yield4 servings
The first time I saw Steirisches Kürbiskernöl, I thought someone had spilled something on my plate. I was maybe ten, sitting at a Buschenschank outside Graz on one of our summer trips, and Gretel ordered a Wurstsalat. When it arrived, the sausage strips were sitting in a pool of something so dark green it looked nearly black. Gretel caught me staring. 'Taste it,' she said. So I did. Nutty, rich, faintly sweet, with a finish that stayed on the back of my tongue for minutes. That was the afternoon I understood that Styria has its own kitchen, and this oil is the heart of it.
Wurstsalat mit Kernöl is not complicated food. You take good Extrawurst, a smooth, lightly smoked sausage that every Austrian child grows up eating on bread, and you cut it into thin strips. Toss it with onion rings, dress the whole thing with cider vinegar thinned with a splash of water, season it, and let it sit for half an hour so the onions soften and the vinegar soaks into the meat. Then, only then, you pour the Kernöl over everything. Dark and glossy, pooling between the strips, turning a plate of cold sausage into something that could only come from one region on earth.
This is the salad you'll find at every Buschenschank and Heuriger across Styria, set out on a wooden board alongside bread and a glass of Schilcher. It asks almost nothing of you in the kitchen. What it asks instead is that you find the right oil and the right sausage, and that you leave them alone to do their work. Good Austrian home cooking has always been about that: a few honest ingredients, treated simply, tasting exactly like where they come from.
Steirisches Kürbiskernöl g.g.A. received its protected geographical indication from the European Union in 1996, certifying that authentic pumpkin seed oil can only be produced from Cucurbita pepo var. styriaca, a hull-less pumpkin seed variety unique to southern Styria. The mutation that produced these shell-less seeds appeared in the 18th century, eliminating the laborious step of hulling and making large-scale pressing practical for the first time. Wurstsalat dressed with Kernöl became a fixture of Styrian Buschenschänke, the seasonal wine taverns where farmers serve their own wine alongside cold platters of sausage, cheese, and bread, and it remains one of the dishes Styrians point to when they want to show you what makes their cooking different from Vienna's.
The technique, the tradition, and the story behind every dish.
Discover Culinary ExplorerIngredients
Extrawurst
Quantity
400g
in one piece if possible
white onion
Quantity
1 medium
Apfelessig (apple cider vinegar)
Quantity
3 tablespoons
cold water
Quantity
2 tablespoons
fine salt
Quantity
1/2 teaspoon
black pepper
Quantity
freshly ground, to taste
Steirisches Kürbiskernöl g.g.A.
Quantity
3 tablespoons
Essiggurkerl (small pickled gherkins) (optional)
Quantity
4
thinly sliced
roasted pumpkin seeds (optional)
Quantity
1 tablespoon
for finishing
Bauernbrot or dark rye bread
Quantity
for serving
| Ingredient | Quantity |
|---|---|
| Extrawurstin one piece if possible | 400g |
| white onion | 1 medium |
| Apfelessig (apple cider vinegar) | 3 tablespoons |
| cold water | 2 tablespoons |
| fine salt | 1/2 teaspoon |
| black pepper | freshly ground, to taste |
| Steirisches Kürbiskernöl g.g.A. | 3 tablespoons |
| Essiggurkerl (small pickled gherkins) (optional)thinly sliced | 4 |
| roasted pumpkin seeds (optional)for finishing | 1 tablespoon |
| Bauernbrot or dark rye bread | for serving |
Equipment Needed
- •Sharp knife
- •Large mixing bowl
- •Small whisk or fork for dressing
Instructions
- 1
Slice the Extrawurst
Peel the casing from the Extrawurst if it has one. Cut the sausage in half lengthwise, then slice each half into strips about half a centimeter wide and five centimeters long. You're after neat, even strips that will catch the dressing and lie flat on the plate. If your deli counter already sliced the Extrawurst into rounds, stack three or four and cut them into strips. Either way works. Drop the strips into a large mixing bowl.
Extrawurst is a smooth, mildly smoked Austrian sausage, finely ground and pale pink. If you can't find it, Fleischwurst or good-quality German Lyoner is the closest substitute. Regular bologna will work in a pinch, but it won't have the same delicate texture. What you're looking for is something smooth, not coarse or heavily spiced. - 2
Prepare the onions
Peel the onion, halve it through the root, and slice it into thin half-rings. You want them fine enough that they soften in the marinade but thick enough to still have some bite after thirty minutes. About two millimeters. If you're adding Essiggurkerl, slice them thinly on the diagonal and add them to the bowl with the sausage and onions.
White onion gives you clean, sharp flavor that mellows beautifully in the vinegar. Red onion looks pretty but can be too sweet for this salad. Gretel always said white onion for Wurstsalat, red onion for Liptauer. She was right. - 3
Dress and marinate
Whisk together the Apfelessig, cold water, salt, and a few good grinds of black pepper. The water matters. Straight vinegar would be too aggressive and you'd lose the sausage under all that acid. The splash of water rounds the dressing out, letting the vinegar do its work without shouting. Pour the dressing over the sausage and onions and toss everything together with your hands or two forks until every strip is coated. Cover and let it sit at room temperature for thirty minutes. Don't skip this. The onions need time to relax, the sausage needs time to absorb, and the flavors need time to become a salad instead of a collection of ingredients.
Room temperature, not the fridge. Cold dulls flavor. You want this salad cool but not refrigerator-cold when it hits the table. If you do need to make it ahead, take it out of the fridge twenty minutes before serving. - 4
Finish with Kernöl and serve
When the salad has marinated, give it one final toss and taste for salt and vinegar. Adjust if you need to. Divide the salad among plates or pile it onto a serving platter. Now pour the Kürbiskernöl over the top in a slow, generous drizzle. Don't stir it in. Let it pool and streak across the surface, dark green and glossy against the pale sausage. Scatter the roasted pumpkin seeds over the top if you have them. Serve with thick slices of Bauernbrot for mopping up the oil and vinegar at the bottom of the plate. Mahlzeit!
The Kernöl goes on last and it never, ever gets heated. Pumpkin seed oil turns bitter the moment it hits a hot pan. It is a finishing oil, full stop. Pour it at the table if you want your guests to see that color. There's nothing else like it.
Chef Tips
- •Buy Steirisches Kürbiskernöl g.g.A., the one with the protected geographical indication on the label. There are imitations made from Chinese pumpkin seeds and they taste flat and oily. The real thing is pressed from roasted seeds and it should smell like toasted nuts the moment you open the bottle. It's not cheap, but a little goes a long way and a bottle keeps for months in a cool cupboard.
- •The marinade is vinegar-forward on purpose. Austrian salad dressings are not oily. The vinegar and water do the seasoning. The Kernöl is a finishing element, poured on at the end for flavor and richness. If you dress this like a French vinaigrette with more oil than acid, you'll lose the balance.
- •Wurstsalat gets better as it sits, up to a point. Thirty minutes is the minimum. An hour is ideal. Past three hours the onions lose their bite completely and the sausage starts to go soft. Make it close to when you plan to eat, not the night before.
- •If you're serving this outdoors or at a picnic, bring the Kernöl separately in a small bottle and pour it on at the last moment. The oil looks its most beautiful when it's fresh on the plate, and the visual is half the pleasure of this dish.
Advance Preparation
- •The sausage can be sliced and the onions cut up to four hours ahead and stored separately in the fridge. Combine with the dressing no more than an hour before serving.
- •Never add the Kernöl until the moment you serve. It loses its glossy sheen and begins to dull after sitting on the salad for too long.
Frequently Asked Questions
Nutrition Information
1 serving (about 185g)
Calories
390 calories
Total Fat
35 g
Saturated Fat
11 g
Trans Fat
0 g
Unsaturated Fat
24 g
Cholesterol
60 mg
Sodium
1290 mg
Total Carbohydrates
5 g
Dietary Fiber
1 g
Sugars
2 g
Protein
13 g
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