Sterz

Sterz is a traditional peasant dish that consists of simple, everyday ingredients, typically a combination of flour, fat, water, and salt. It is mostly associated with the Austrian regions of Burgenland and Styria, although different varieties of this flour mash are also found in other parts of Austria, Slovenia, Bavaria, and Croatia. The dish can be made with various types of flour such as wheat flour, rye flour, buckwheat flour, spelt flour, or a combination of any of these flour kinds. To make sterz, the flour is typically lightly browned before it is cooked in boiling salted water and stir-fried with fat (traditionally with lard). Other common ingredients contained in this dish include eggs, milk, pork cracklings, bacon bits, beans, and onions. Depending on the addition to the basic flour mixture, there are numerous types of sterz, including eiersterz (egg sterz), mehlsterz (flour sterz), grammelsterz (with pork cracklings), kukuruzsterz (also called turkensterz, a cornmeal sterz), riebelsterz (potato sterz), and blutsterz (with pig blood). A popular variety of sterz in both Burgenland and Styria is heidensterz, a type of buckwheat flour-based sterz, which is considered a national dish in Styria. Traditionally, sterz dishes are enjoyed with soups or used as an einladen (filling) for soups, although they are also commonly eaten for breakfast with milk.