Wiener schnitzel — 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 Weiner schnitzel is veal. It can’t be anything else. I’ve got two veal

scaloppini 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.

Alright, I am 100% 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 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’ma save that for breakfast.

One egg is more than enough, and I’ll just beat that smooth in the plate with a fork.

In goes the meat, and again, get off any excess.

Now, breadcrumbs. You could 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 onto the food processor as it goes? Because

it you don’t, it might gradually walk off the counter.

Alright, I’ve been blitzing those for like 5 minutes, and they are not fine enough. Not

for schnitzel. Fact is, a lot of the bread you buy these days, at least where I live,

is made with dough conditioners that delay staling, and as result this bread just isn’t

dry or hard enough yet to make fine breadcrumbs.

You could certainly just buy some breadcrumbs. These are very fine and bone dry. Another

option to consider is Japanese breadcrumbs. 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 breadcrumbs and one piece in the blitzed panko.

The key here is to not press the meat into the breadcrumbs. 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, “Butterschmalz,” 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 gonna strain the butter through.

For good measure, I’m gonna 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 butterfat — 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’ve 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 favored of the traditional side dishes for schnitzel — cucumber salad.

Also traditional would be fries or potato salad, but I don’t need to be having carbs

with my carb-encrusted protein. Plus I freaking love a 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 gonna cut it once down the middle before slicing thin. This’ll

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 more vinegar or anything else. Delicious salad.

And there’s our panko Weiner schnitzel. 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 “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 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 itself 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 “schweineschnitzel.” 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 can just eyeball it — make it as creamy as you want it. Let it sit in the fridge a

long time before tasting and adding vinegar or anything else it needs.

Check out the size of that cutlet! Back where I used 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 the creamy version of the

salad almost as much as the other one.

OK, last thing, let’s make a chicken schnitzel. The chicken breasts that I get at the store

are so huge that I’m not 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 that 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 it’s traditional

but it’s real tasty.

And we can fry this one it good ol’ vegetable oil. Totally fine to use a neutral frying

oil for any schnitzel. Dip the meat’s toes in — oops, 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 catchphrases