Austria unit

April 18, 2022

Do you know what, according to 12 year old me, is important about Austria? The Lipizzaner Stallions and the Spanish Riding Academy. I know there is so much history there, and so many amazing things that happened, but 12 year old me was horse crazy. This of course meant when we went through our Austria unit, of course, there were horse videos. This geography lesson was a bit more focused on music than geography because all the famous musicians are from Austria, which I hadn’t truly realized until this unit.

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Austria information to get me started

As always I turned to a quick search to find more ideas about Austria to get my Austria unit study started

Austria booklist

I loved the books we found for this, and I really wish I could have done a few more activities with this, high school students just aren’t as much fun in this particular area.

The Farewell Symphony– Joseph Hadyn, whose music I love, writes a farewell symphony
Gregor Mendel: the friar who grew peas– super cool book about Gregor Mendel and how he worked to learn about genetics
Klimt and his cat– I didn’t know anything about Klimt before this unit, so it was pretty cool to see
The Lipizzan Horse– I loved the Lipizzan horses when I was in school
Little Marmots– I didn’t know marmots were from here
Mozart finds a melody– Mozart is another who I like to listen to when I’m in the mood to relax
Mozart, the wonder child: a puppet play in three acts– another great book, sadly it’s out of print
The Perfect Horse: the daring rescue of horses kidnapped by Hitler- Disney made a movie about these events, that I absolutely love- darn it looks like it’s out of print now
William Tell– if you’re feeling brave after reading this you could have your kids shoot toy arrows at each other, like my Gospel Arrows…
Welcome to Austria– a good overview that we didn’t really use

Austria recipe: beef goulash

Apparently, I did not save the recipe, but thankfully a quick search found the same recipe again: Authentic Austrian beef goulash.

Since making it the first time I’ve made it a few more times, not as often as I would like because The Artist isn’t a big fan of paprika, and it’s a pretty paprika heavy recipe.

Austrian beef goulash ingredients

2 pounds of beef stew meat
2 onions
1/2 tablespoon marjoram
1/2 tablespoon ground caraway seeds
1 tablespoon tomato paste
4 tablespoons paprika
1 teaspoon hot paprika
1/2 tablespoon vinegar
3/4 teaspoon salt
2 bay leaves (optional, but I included them)
oil

Austrian beef goulash directions

Cut onions in half and then slice into thin slices.
Heat the oil, then add the beef and sear the beef, for about 5-10 minutes. When done, transfer the beef to a plate.
Add more oil and heat it, then add the onions to the pot. Cook for 8-10 minutes over high heat, stirring frequently. Reduce heat to medium, and then cook until onions are golden brown and soft.
Add the marjoram, ground caraway seeds, tomato paste, and paprika to the onions. Stir to mix all the spices in. Immediately after add the vinegar followed by the broth. Let this cook until the onion mix is almost entirely reduced.
Add another cup of water (if you have an immersion blender, you can blend the onions, I don’t have that, so I did not), and add salt, bay leaves, and beef. Stir to combine, then put the lid on and allow the flavors to blend cooking for about 3 hours.

Yield: 6 servings

Austrian Beef Goulash

Austrian beef goulash is great for a cold day to serve over egg noodles or spatzle

Ingredients

2 pounds of beef stew meat
2 onions
1/2 tablespoon marjoram
1/2 tablespoon ground caraway seeds
1 tablespoon tomato paste
4 tablespoons paprika
1 teaspoon hot paprika
1/2 tablespoon vinegar
1 cup broth (chicken or beef)
3/4 teaspoon salt
2 bay leaves (optional, but I included them)
oil

Instructions

Cut onions in half and then slice into thin slices.
Heat the oil, then add the beef and sear the beef, for about 5-10 minutes. When done, transfer the beef to a plate.
Add more oil and heat it, then add the onions to the pot. Cook for 8-10 minutes over high heat, stirring frequently. Reduce heat to medium, and then cook until onions are golden brown and soft.
Add the marjoram, ground caraway seeds, tomato paste, and paprika to the onions. Stir to mix all the spices in. Immediately after add the vinegar followed by the broth. Let this cook until the onion mix is almost entirely reduced.
Add another cup of water, add salt, bay leaves, and beef. Stir to combine, then put the lid on and allow the flavors to blend cooking for about 3 hours.

Austria Notebooking Pages

I used the Europe notebooking pages and then the Austria notebooking pages I’ve uploaded to the subscriber page (you’ve joined my newsletter right?)

I had four minibooks for Austria:

Austrian composers- there are two of them and I made it into this super cool-looking booklet, which my kids, of course, did not cut out the tabs.
William Tell- the story is so cool
Genetics in Peas- they wrote down what Mendel learned about pea genetics
Gustav Klimt– I really enjoyed trying to copy his art style, with mixed success

And my fun facts for the country:

according to legend their flag comes from King Leopold II
they are currently neutral
they claim to of invented the sewing machine (that’s something there is much disagreement over)