Backhendl

Backhendl is the breaded, pan-fried chicken of Vienna, the dish for which the city's wine taverns (heuriger) and grand restaurants became famous across 19th-century Europe. The dish was popularised in the 1830s by the Viennese chef Joseph Kolb, who fried a young chicken in breadcrumbs and served it with a slice of lemon and a pile of parsley.

The bird is a young free-range spring chicken (Backhendlhenne), butterflied, lightly floured, dipped in beaten egg, and pressed in fine dry breadcrumbs. It is shallow-fried in clarified butter until the crust is shatteringly crisp and the breast meat is just cooked, then split down the backbone and served as two golden halves. The traditional accompaniments are a slice of lemon, a parsley-butter sauce, potato-cucumber salad, and a green-leaf salad.

Backhendl is served at every heuriger on the Wienerwald hillsides, in the city's grand coffeehouses such as Café Landtmann, and at traditional Gasthäuser in Baden bei Wien, Klosterneuburg, and Grinzing. It is also the centrepiece of any Viennese Sunday family lunch, paired with a young Grüner Veltliner from the surrounding hills.