Schnitzel — veal, chicken and pork versions — with cucumber salad

wienerschnitzel the iconic dish of vienna such a simple thing and so good i'm going to show you how to do schnitzels with various meats and various fats this is the kind of home frying that i can really get behind because it requires very little oil schnitzel is just the german term for any very thin cut of meat that's been breaded and fried but wienerschnitzel is veal it can't be anything else i've got two veal scallopini here probably the most common way veal is sold in the u.s very thin slices and we're gonna make them even thinner a layer of plastic wrap on top and i will use my smooth meat mallet to pound these as flat as possible without tearing them apart you might feel that eating a juvenile animal is particularly cruel and you could certainly argue that however it is also true that the industry here in the u.s and many other countries has phased out the practice of keeping calves confined to crates just fyi all right i am a hundred percent on team season the meat not the breading i would have no idea how much salt to put into a pile of flour but i can look at a piece of meat and judge how much salt i will want on it just remember it's really thin you're not seasoning an inch thick steak here go easy schnitzel is so thin that you absolutely cannot tell in the end whether the seasoning goes all the way through the breading or if it just went on the meat i would challenge you to a blind taste test if you disagree into some plain flour and everything here should be as light and thin as possible knock off any excess now we need an egg hey it's a double yolker i'm gonna save that for breakfast one egg is more than enough and i'll just beat that smooth and the plate with a fork in goes the meat and again get off any excess now breadcrumbs you can make your own breadcrumbs from stale bread which is of course the traditional way i left this bread out overnight and then i'll throw it in my food processor you ever wonder why people hold on to the food processor as it goes because if you don't it might gradually walk off the counter all right i've been blitzing those for like five minutes and they are not fine enough not for schnitzel fact is a lot of the bread that you buy these days at least where i live is made with dough conditioners that delay stalin and as a result this bread just isn't dry or hard enough yet to make fine bread crumbs you could certainly just buy some bread crumbs these are very fine and bone dry another option to consider is japanese bread crumbs panko obviously not traditional for schnitzel but nothing else is remotely as crispy as panko the crumbs are way too big and jagged for something this delicate but you can grind them up in the food processor and make them fine i'll show you one piece in the regular store bought bread crumbs and one piece in the blitzed panko the key here is to not press the meat into the bread crumbs light light light just let whatever wants to stick stick and we'll bring these immediately over to our hot clarified butter certainly one of the traditional fats for this you can buy it but i'll show you how i made this half a pound or a quarter kilo of butter into a little saucepan and then turn the heat on like medium low just let it melt and then boil for a long time this took almost half an hour the milk proteins rise to the top while the sugars and water sink to the bottom when the bubbling really slows down you know most of the water is gone and i think that's where the traditional germanic clarified butter butter schmaltz usually stops indian ghee goes the extra step of letting this brown a little bit and i think i did brown this a little but that's fine if you just wanted to buy a jar of ghee that'd work too i've got a strainer with a paper towel in it and i'm just going to strain the butter through for good measure i'm going to strain it again on the way into my big 12 inch fry pan if there's any milk solids still in the butter they will burn terribly when we fry our schnitzel but that is perfect right there pure butter fat no protein or sugar that would burn and no water that would burst and pop at the medium-high heat that i'm using with this kind of thing i think the easiest way to test the temperature is to dip your meat's toes into the oil if it sizzles a lot you're good to drop the rest in so they say the schnitzel should be swimming in the fat meaning there's enough fat in the pan that the meat is floating above the metal surface but not so much fat that the meat is submerged that would be deep frying i think i've got a hair too much fat in this pan one way i found myself parting with tradition on this is i like to flip the schnitzels multiple times as they cook basically constant flipping just like the technique of constantly flipping steak i think it works here for the same reasons it helps things cook a little more evenly and it stops you from being surprised like i almost burned those dark spots where the big one touched the bottom of the pan and i definitely would have burned it if i'd waited to flip until halfway through the cooking you flip often there's no surprises you can assess and adjust the heat move things to a cooler part of the pan etc with a piece of meat this thin you can be virtually guaranteed that the inside will be done by the time the outside looks done out these come to a rack or some paper towels to drain and rest normal breadcrumbs are on the right and boy can you tell you can already see the panko crumbs on the left are crispier on the plate goes my favorite of the traditional sides for schnitzel cucumber salad also traditional be fries or potato salad but i don't need to be having carbs with my carbon crusted protein plus i freaking love cucumber salad i've got an english cucumber here in the u.s this variety comes wrapped in plastic because the skins have not been waxed that makes them good to eat without peeling and you just slice them as thin as you can any cucumber is fine but english cucumbers have this dense texture that works really well for a thin sliced salad into a bowl those go not everybody likes onion in this i definitely do about half a red onion for that much cucumber and i'm going to cut it once down the middle before slicing thin this will give me quarter rounds a manageable size for a salad in those go and then a whole bunch of fresh dill you could get away with dried dill but you'd want to use a lot less then i'm just eyeballing equal quantities of white vinegar and any neutral oil for the dressing you can always add more later pepper a pinch of salt and then the traditional big pinch of sugar stir that around and you want to make that hours before you eat maybe the day before it'll basically pickle a little bit in the fridge a ton of moisture will come out of the veg and then you can give it a stir taste it and see if you want to add more vinegar or anything else delicious salad and there's our panko wienerschnitzel i like some fresh parsley on top and then the sauce an ample squeeze of fresh lemon i would call that essential that is the sauce really crispy and tasty you might be thinking that's so bland where's the seasoning well with something this simple you can really taste the core elements shining through the taste of the clarified butter is really strong to me it's the dominant flavor here how does that other cutlet stack up the one with the quote unquote normal breadcrumbs it's good but it's not as crispy now i'm sure a 9th degree schnitzel master could make it crispy they've got all kinds of tricks there's this thing where they shake the pan really aggressively to make the breading separate partially from the meat causing it to fry into something like a phyllo shell that's cool but i am not a 9th degree schnitzel master and if you aren't either i highly recommend panko that you've blitzed into a fine powder it's just foolproof crispy every time could this work with beef instead of veal well yeah german and austrian immigrants in texas made it with beef and that became chicken fried steak one of the great american dishes but let's try making it with pork now that'd be schweinen schnitzel i've got two boneless pork loin chops and i'm gonna butterfly them just cut them to make them half their original thickness stop right before you go all the way through and open it up like a book plastic wrap on top i hate wasting it but from a food safety perspective this is probably the practice i should be advocating it just prevents bacteria-laden juice from splattering around your kitchen look how big those suckers are i'll season them as before flour egg breadcrumbs yes that's the fine panko and let's reach for another traditional schnitzel fat lard a few big spoonfuls into a hot pan it melts right away medium-high heat dip the pork's toes in sure seems hot enough and again i'll flip it a few times when she's outwardly done she's done time to drain and cool here's another common version of that cucumber salad this is the creamy version it's exactly the same except instead of oil and vinegar dressing it's vinegar and sour cream you just eyeball it make it as creamy as you want it let it sit in the fridge for a long time before tasting and adding more vinegar or anything else it needs check out the size of that cutlet back where i used to live in indiana they would put a comically too small for the job hamburger bun on that with some mustard onions and pickles that's another german descended classic they call a tenderloin sandwich even though it's usually made with loin not tenderloin anyway this is great though don't use the lard unless you like for your pig to really taste like pig which this definitely does and i think i like that creamy version of the salad almost as much as the other one okay last thing let's make a chicken schnitzel the chicken breasts that i get at the store are so huge that i'm not even gonna bother butterflying this i'm just cutting all the way through that half is easily one portion on its own i'll pound it out you could use a rolling pin or a heavy saucepan for this but be prepared the chicken tends to shred and break apart more when pounded out so be careful season that and dust it in the flour and if you wanted to kick up the flavor a bit i quite like a big spoonful of mustard mixed in with the egg no idea if that's traditional but it's real tasty and we can fry this one in good old vegetable oil totally fine to use a neutral frying oil for any schnitzel dip the meat's toes in oops that's not hot enough try again still not hot enough and there we go the mustard is delicious but be aware that it will contribute to uneven coloring on the crust she's crispy she's brown she's done and if she's still a little raw in the center she'll probably finish cooking via carry over during resting that mustard in the breading really makes this come alive by the way i would be conservative with my salt on these cutlets because you can always salt them some more at the table and i actually prefer that i like that heterogeneity i suppose that whole heterogeneous seasoning thing is becoming one of my catch phrases along with this one you know what this means sure you do it's our little secret code that's what makes it fun and yes it is now on a t-shirt and yes you can now buy it for a very limited time we will take pre-orders on this for the next 14 days two weeks from the day this video goes live working with a company called bonfire took me a while to find the right company to work with i like these folks bonfire will take your pre-orders for the next two weeks and at the end of that we'll see how many we've got then we'll print the shirts and then send them out to you the cost is 20 plus shipping and tax which is obviously going to depend a lot on where you live it's a nice high quality soft shirt and we opted for the screen printing instead of the laser printing so this looks really good and it's going to last a long time nothing fancy here there's no color options it's unisex i'm wearing a medium right now lauren is wearing an extra small and you want to see what's on the back absolutely nothing is on the back there's no like go to adamergucia.com or youtube.comagusia no identifying marks or explanatory language whatsoever just our little secret code you want t-shirt do your pre-order in the next two weeks the link is down in the description now go make some schnitzel

Channel: Adam Ragusea

Views: 965,722

Rating: 4.9186707 out of 5

Keywords: schnitzel recipe, pork schnitzel, german schnitzel, schnitzel recipe pork, wiener schnitzel, how to make schnitzel, german food, schnitzel (dish), weiner schnitzel, schnitzel recipe chicken, chicken schnitzel, pork schnitzel recipe, how to make schnitzel veal, how to make schnitzel pork, austrian food, austrian schnitzel, cucumber salad, german cucumber salad, austrian cucumber salad, creamy cucumber salad, cucumber dill salad

Id: 4eGNy2E7CVs

Length: 10min 42sec (642 seconds)

Published: Thu Jul 30 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/2Liberal4You]

This is peak Adam Ragusea. Good video, major props with the merch plug. No sponsor, I don't think.

[u/The-Bigger-Fish]

9th Degree Schnitzel Master is one of the strongest anime characters I've ever seen.

[u/YOLO4JESUS420SWAG]

Literally just made this for dinner because of the video today.

• Flour check
• eggs check
• pork check
• crumbs check
• S&P oh you bet ya

[u/cleansweeep]

Yay! I made this after watching the video. I’ve been struggling with my appetite so thankful Adam picked a food for me to get excited about :)

I used pork chops, stone ground mustard, flour, eggs, and Panko. Fried in vegetable oil and served with lemon and instant mashed potatoes. The mustard is an insanely good addition to the meat!

[u/ClovisDixon]

I love Schnitzel esp with spaetzle !

[u/ninfan200]

I'm excited to make that cucumber salad soon

[u/Dudefued]

I think his mustard in the egg trick sounds awesome, he’s a genius. Totally trying that soon.

[u/odor12]

Missed an opportunity to show Japanese donkatsu

[u/ewokskick]

I strongly recommend you all try the Indiana pork tenderloin sandwich he referenced in this video. It's a wonderful and silly dish that almost everyone who tries loves.