Frittatensuppe

Frittatensuppe is clear beef broth with thin ribbons of savoury pancake floating through it. It is Austria's everyday starter soup, built from almost nothing more than broth and a pancake batter that most kitchens have the ingredients for already.

What it really is

A thin savoury pancake — the Frittate, close kin to a crêpe — is made from flour, egg and milk, cooked briefly on both sides in a flat pan, then rolled and sliced crosswise into ribbons once it has cooled enough to hold its shape. Those ribbons go into a bowl and hot, clear beef broth is poured over them at the last moment, just long enough to warm the pancake through without letting it fall apart into the liquid.

The broth has to be genuinely clear. A cloudy or fatty stock muddies the whole point of a soup this simple — there is nowhere for a poor broth to hide when the only other thing in the bowl is a few ribbons of pancake.

How it is served

• In a clear bowl, so the broth and the pale pancake ribbons are both visible.
• As the opening course of a larger meal, rarely on its own.
• Simply, with a scattering of chives or parsley and nothing more.

How to write it on the menu

• Flag gluten, egg and dairy from the pancake batter.
• Say if a vegetable broth is used instead of beef, since that is a straightforward and common substitution.
• Note that it depends entirely on the broth; a stock cube version is a genuinely different, much thinner soup.