Saturday, August 14, 2010

Making Wiener Schnitzel

I went out to B's parents house for a Wiener Schnitzel making lesson.

Traditionally it's made of veal, but we prefer pork. B's mom was using pork tenderloin, which she showed me how to cut in order to make it flat. I can't duplicate the instructions in writing---it's hard to explain how to transform a cylindrical piece of meat into a flat piece, but the butcher's shop will do it for you.

Here's basically how it goes. You need:

flour
breadcrumbs
a couple of eggs
veal or pork cutlet
salt
oil capable of taking high temperature or coconut oil or clarified butter

First, take a meat mallet and lightly tap the cutlets until they're about 1/2 or 3/4 inches thick. Lightly, I said---you're not Rocky Balboa slamming the shit out of a side of beef. Show some restraint.

Then lightly salt both sides of each cutlet.

In a frying pan put about 3/4 inch of oil. B's mom uses coconut oil. Let it get medium hot...on a scale of 1 - 10, about a 6. (As a side note, B's mom uses a pan that belonged to her grandmother and is literally about 100 years old. This is the exclusive schnitzel-making pan in her house, and it gives the flavor of the ages.)

You need three bowls. One for flour, one for a couple of beaten eggs, and one for fine bread crumbs.

First dip the cutlet into the flour, both sides. Then dip into the egg, both sides. Finally dip into the bread crumbs, both sides.

Then gently place the cutlets into the pan (hot grease, remember? No splashy-splashy.) They cook pretty quickly. After about a minute, check the color...when done, it should be a kind of golden brown. Flip the cutlet and do the other side. I'd say a minute and a half to two minutes MAX per side, depending on temperature of your pan, and thickness of the cutlets.

If you're just making a few schnitzels, you can cook them up and serve them immediately but if you're making a bunch, it's a good idea to heat the oven to about 200 F and put a dish in there. Put paper towels in the bottom to soak up excess oil, and as you cook each schnitzel put it in the oven to keep warm. Dab the tops with another paper towel and they won't be greasy.
Schnitzel cooking in a century-old pan. The one at bottom is almost done because it's the right color. Don't freak out over the dirty-looking stuff in the oil; it's just breadcrumb coating from previous schnitzels that fell off and are continuing to cook (burn.) Schnitzel if done right will be more or less uniform in color and definitely not burned anywhere.

Serve with a wedge of lemon and some potato salad. Or whatever.

It's not bad cold, either. We took some extra home and I ate it later with some Sambal Oelek, which is the Condiment of the Gods and no kitchen should be without it, praise its holy name. 

That modification is certainly not traditional Viennese cooking but hey---modify it as you will. Sprinkle some Parmesan cheese on it, add some spices you like, whatever.

----

My mom was hardly what feminists would describe as a liberated woman, but in her own way she was. When I was a young kid she insisted that I help her in the kitchen. At first I protested it was "women's work" but she told me: "If you like to eat, you need to learn to cook. There might not always be a woman around to cook for you and besides, the world's best chefs are men." (She was right about the first part. The jury is still out RE: the second part.) 

I pity men who can't or won't cook. These are the same bastards who fall apart when their woman (slave) dies or leaves them because they don't even know how to feed themselves. Inexcusable. Women, learn how to change oil in your car, and change flat tires. Men, learn how to do laundry and cook.

I really treasure all that time in the kitchen with my mom. I didn't like drying the dishes (no dishwashers back then, at least not in our house----we were the dishwashers) or peeling potatoes but it was fun learning from Mom. I got that same feeling today with B's mom, who was a very gentle and patient teacher.

Weinviertel Adventures

If you visit the Wikipedia link to Lower Austria, you see on the map that this federal state is actually at the top of the country, adding a very definite WTF? aspect to the geographical nomenclature of the place.

Notice also a kind of an island in the upper right corner. That's Vienna, which is both a city and a state. Not to be confused with the situation with Salzburg, in which there is a state called Salzburg that also contains within its borders a city named Salzburg. With Vienna, the city and the state are the same thing.

Now that you're confused, let me further confusify you by saying that we drove out of Vienna (and therefore into Lower Austria, which surrounds Vienna...get it?) to a section called the Weinviertel, or "Wine Quarter." Why does it have that name? Lotsa grape vines, therefore grapes, therefore wine.

Our destination: the Urgeschichtemuseum Niederösterreich, or as the website calls it The Museum of Prehistory of Lower Austria. 

The museum is contained within an old castle, and its grounds. Outside there are recreations of dwellings dating from prehistoric times up until the time of the Celts. Evidently there are a significant number of archaeological finds in Austria, proving that people have lived in these parts for many thousands of years. Check out this page for a photo slide show that gives you an idea of the different structures people may have used since before recorded history.
What they suppose a Celt lodge might have looked like.

The exhibits inside were just as impressive, including one that explains prehistoric mining.

The only bummer part for me was that the info was presented only in German, though you could rent one of those audio devices that will tell you what's what as you walk along, in your native language. Problem was, I didn't know about the existence of those devices and the lady selling the tickets didn't bother to mention it, either. I only learned about it when B mentioned seeing someone using one of the things.

That done, we drove to a nearby small town that had a pretty impressive health food store, where we bought rolls and cheese, which the proprietor gladly turned into sandwiches for us. Lunch finished, we drove through the countryside. Which I quite liked----mostly farmland with (of course) vineyards, wheat or hay, and millions of sunflowers that were so heavy with seeds that their heads drooped toward the ground instead of toward the sun.

As we'd drive through each village I noticed how quiet it was...I guess everyone was at work, or sitting in their gardens. There was basically no street life to be seen...the ghost villages of Austria.

Austria has working oil wells. B's dad told me today that Austria produces 25% of its own petroleum. The rest is imported. Not sure if that's accurate or not, but I sure enough saw some pumps in action:
Oklahoma in Austria? A rift in the time-space continuum.

I stumbled upon an interesting blog post from a guy who spent some time with one of the Weinviertel locals. Which is really the best way to experience a new place, if you can manage it.

Here's a video to give you a feel for the lay of the land, and the wine cellars: