On the menus of Viennese restaurants like Meissl und Schadn on the Ringstrasse or the Wiener Rathauskeller in city hall is a dessert whose origins, as the name would indicate, very much lay elsewhere: Salzburger Nockerln. A Nockerl is a dumpling, and in this case, the dumplings are soufflé-like and designed to evoke the mountains that define Salzburg's natural surroundings. The chief legend concerning the dish's origins involves a seventeenth-century prince-archbishop, Wolfgang Dietrich von Reitenau and his lover, Salome Alt, a relationship which supposedly bore 15 love children and gave Alt the keys to the Schloss Mirabell. That's the poetry. The prose, it seems, is that Salzburger Nockerln was born sometime in the nineteenth century, when recipes start cropping up in all manner of cookbooks such as those written by Marie von Rokitansky and Johann von Österreich.
Salzburger Nockerln requires relatively few ingredients to make, though before you start creating the soufflé element, first you need to grease an ovenproof oval dish with about an ounce of butter, pour in a little heavy cream, and then warm the dish in an 375 degree F oven. Now, to make the eggy hillocks, whip egg whites with a pinch of salt and sugar until stiff peaks form. With haste (but I assume not panic, if possible), fold in the yolks (though not all, for the ratio seems to be three whites to two yolks) along with vanilla and rum and finally some flour, sifting it over the mass before doing so. The end result should be a creamy, light mixture which you should be able to heave with a dough scraper into mounds into the pre-warmed ovenproof dish. After 10 to 12 minutes at 375, the risen, burnished Nockerln are ready to be dusted with icing sugar and served immediately before the majestic mountains collapse.
