Recipe for Potatoes and Cream Sauce?

Well, that's a good place to find a variation of a bechamel sauce - if it started with milk, flour, and butter...maybe some cheese...yum! As thin or think as you'd like, it's how you'd make potatoes au gratin, for instance. I think you should return to Innsbruck ASAP and find out ;-)

And when you want a lot of the sauce, you say "Bechamel Mucho" just like Dean Martin sings it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ab7e8y_IODk&feature=related

:rolling eyes: Karen, you toooooooo funny ;-) Now, for the rest of my life everytime I see 'bechamel'...LOL!

Erin, sounds like what my mother used to call "scallopped potatoes", or what the French call "pommes de terre gratinées".

you start with equal amounts of butter and flour in a skillet, and wisk in milk until desired thickness. You can also use chicken broth. I season with salt, pepper and nutmeg, you can add in cheese if you want. It is classic scalloped potatos.

Thanks for all of your feedback/suggestions. I looked into what you're talking about, and I'm not quite sure if it's the same thing. This cream sauce tasted garlicy with chives in it. The potatoes were simple -- they were just sliced, and sauteed with onions, garlic, and parsley. Maybe the bechamel sauce you suggested is the base and they added more to it?

Hi, Erin, I would post on Chowhound's Europe forum and ask this. If you had this at a number of places I bet someone will be able to tell you what it was and how to make it. There are a number of threads about Vienna restaurants going so it seems like people familiar with Austrian food do frequent the board. http://chowhound.chow.com/boards/87 If no one helps you there, move on to the forums at egullet.org.

I leave for Eastern Europe including Vienna in a few days...maybe I will just have to check it out and see if I can find the recipe for you. It took me almost 4 years to find a great recipe for the goulash suppe that I had all over Germany, but it was worth the tons of trials as I finally have the perfect recipe. I have also perfected my risotto after lots of glue like imposters. Keep asking someone will know...hopefully it will be me in a month or so. Still need a great spatzel with asparagus recipe.

Erin, I'm looking at the one and only German cookbook I have and there is a recipe for Helle Grundsosse (Basic Cream Sauce). 2 Tablespoons butter, 4 tablespoons flour, 1 pint soup stock, salt and pepper. Basically this is a bechamel sauce. Then you can add what you want--garlic, chives, parsley, dill, sauteed mushrooms, mustard, cheese, or whatever.

I am thinking that a really flavorful sauce that has made this dish stand out so, was probably made with heavy cream and not with stock. They use a lot of cream over here and it does make for fabulous tasting dishes. Some recipes may even call for creme fraiche, a double cream or schmand, which is sort of a sour cream and both of these will also give you a very rich, flavorful sauce. When using these last 2, you may not even need to make a roux first, as they thicken on their own. I don't know if creme fraiche is easily available in the US though.

ROAD TRIP!!! Who's in?

Road trip to Innsbruck? I'm in. I'm still dreaming of the Nussgipfel (or whatever they call these things in Austria; I used the Swiss term) I had in Innsbruck in 2001. And then we'll head down to Bolzano for the Mohnstrudel.

Thanks everyone for the great advice!! I love this website! Christy: I will try Chowhound. Terry kathryn: I will not give up!! (Feel free to pass along those recipes you mentioned....) Kathy: I will look into this base recipe more... Jo: This was my first thought also. Eileen and Lola: I was a broke grad student before the trip, and I'm even more broke now. Do you feel like sponsoring a poor, hungry student? James: It was a hot dish. Two separate things. You could buy just the hot potatoes, and add the sauce for an additional charge. All: I'm asking my friends that accompanied me if they have any photos. If I find one, I will attach (somehow). Thanks again!

Erin, I'm sure if you'd carry Lola's and my luggage...we could work something out ;-) Good luck in your quest!

Thanks to everyone for making me smile!

Creme fraiche is definitely available at specialty stores. I can get it at European-type markets and also Whole Foods carries it. It's wonderful as a dip for fresh fruits as well. (Really don't want to look at calorie count)

Eileen, I'm going to Germany in a month or so and I was debating whether to also include Austria. My wife claims that I treat "starches" as a required food group and "cheese" as another, so reading about these potatoes may settle the question for me. In other words, I may make this road trip. Anyone know if I have to travel to Innsbruck or are the potatoes available elsewhere?

Paul- starches, cheese, beer/wine (aka 'starches' LOL), beef, pork, chicken, veges to eat with the meats...yep, that's all of the food groups. Although really, you just need starches, cheese, and beer/wine. And chocolate. And cream/butter. Yep, that's it. And Marilyn - thanks for making me smile 8^D

Erin, my best guess is a simple recipe of Cream, dill, salt and pepper!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! easy peasy. No idea what that sauce is called. enjoy.

Ok Erin, I hope my wife does not see that I gave her receipe away. Things will go badly for me. 60g butter, cold, chopped into chunks 1/3 cup plain flour 4 1/2 cups milk, cold 75g parmesan cheese, finely grated 1/4 teaspoon salt White pepper to taste, don't use black. One small yellow onion, pique'd with bay leaves and cloves.
One pinch of nutmeg My wife puts this on thinly sliced yukon gold potatoes, or stuffed cannelloni. What is giving the Austrian sauce it's flavor is the pique'd onion, ( a whole onion that has bay leaves and cloves pinned to it.) The onion is removed at the end of the cooking. Too much for a travel website? I don't care, because I still dream of the Baba Cakes with rum sauce I had in Paris. I would give anything for that receipe.

Crash, this sounds wonderful! I'll have to try this sometime this week. Thanks for the recipe!

In a fit of pique, I looked this up. You learn something new every day. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e9j-wzXpMi8

At our local pub there is a warm sauce that is poured over potatoes that consists of sour cream heated gently with a whole onion spiked with bay leaves and cloves and before serving chopped chives (lots) are added, particulary good with small new unpeeled potatoes. Sounds like a lazy (or very busy) persons alternative to some of the above recipes.

Bechamel, bechamel mucho.... That is too funny! I'll have to add it to my repertoire. I totally blow people away when I say I'm serving "old rotten potatoes" (au gratin potatoes)!

Karen, I too was mucho piqued...I believe the secret is in the hand flourish at the end. Would Judas Priest work as well as piano jazz???