Guten tag DFO! Wie gehts?

Alright, I’ll go ahead and do this in English instead. German is one of the languages I fuck around with a bit. I had 5 years of German classes between junior high and high school. Mostly because in high school if you took German 3 (DREI!) you only had to go to class on Monday, Wednesday and Friday. While if you took German 4 (VIER!) you went to class on Tuesday and Thursday. I learned enough German that I read the German version of “A Time to Live and a Time to Die” (Zeit zu Leben und Zeit zu Sterben) by Erich Maria Remarque and did a book report on it, also in German. I think I got a “B”.

Awesome.

As you may have noticed, German is a good language to shout in.

After all that fancy learnin’ I could probably survive alone in Germany. I can order a beer (“Ein  kaltes bier bitte”) notice I asked for a cold beer and said please, I can find a hotel (Wo ist mein Hotel?) and other important phrases as well, “Wo ist das bordell?” and “Hast du irgendwelche marijuana?”

Yeah, I could survive there.

Let’s talk about German food shall we? If you are a long time reader you may remember this beauty from season 1 of Sunday Gravy; Goulash with homemade noodles! 

If you haven’t tried the goulash, holy fuck. It is more of a Winter meal but just searching for it and linking to it made me want to devour an entire pot of that stuff. Delicious.

So obviously I love German food. Pretty much all of it. I made a saurbraten many years back that soaked in vinegar and spices in the refrigerator for 4 days before I cooked it and goddamn it was good. A pain in the ass to make but goddamn was it good.

On my most recent trip a couple of years back to Minnesota, to see the Vikings play a home game we went to this place.

The Gasthof zur Gemutlichkeit! It’s in Minneapolis and it’s an authentic German beer hall. Awesome German food and beer and German women and the strolling accordion player. Fucking good times man. I’m planning a trip this year to the new dojo “Birdmurderdome!” and will revisit this place again.

If you haven’t taken German or need a quick translation of today’s meal we are making Jagerschnitzel and spaetzle. I’m going to use the Americanized spelling of “spaetzle” since the one in the title contains the little dot things above it (that’s an umlaut) and it’s not a standard font so “spaetzle” it is!

There are many versions of schnitzel in Germany. For us West Coast residents many will automatically think “Oh, hey! Der Weinerschitzel!” That’s a West Coast hot dog joint that has no fucking idea what constitutes a real schnitzel. Some marketing genius says “Hey! It’s got ‘Weiner’ in the title!” and then he probably snickered. The chain is just called “Weinerschnitzel” now after they dropped the “Der” which should be pronounced “dare” and not the American “Durr!”

Real Weinerschitzel is made from veal but pork and even chicken can also be used. Schnitzel is a dredged and coated chop that is pounded thin and pan fried. Some schnitzels are bigger than the damn plate they are served on. Quick aside, the “Weiner” in them is a misnomer. It suggests it originated in “Vienna” – hence Weiner – but the Austrians deny that and refuse to take credit for Weinerschnitzel.

Other type of schnitzels include:

Rahmschnitzel – a schnitzel covered in cream sauce and black pepper.

Kaserschnitzel – schnitzel covered with melted cheese (Mother of fuck!)

Holsteinschnitzel – schnitzel with sauteed onion, a slice of ham and a fried egg on top. Called Holsteinschnitzel after the Holstein region of Germany where it originated.

Zigeunerschnitzel – called “Gypsy” schnitzel since it is covered with a red sauce and lots of Hungarian paprika.

Check it out! Even “Cordon Bleu” is a type of schnitzel.

Today though, we are making “jagerschnitzel” because jagerschnitzel is a schnitzel that is covered in? You guessed it. Motherfucking GRAVY! Usually a mushroom or mushroom cream gravy.

Last story before we roll out the motherfucking barrel.

Remember when we all lived in our old house? The happy house filled with love, and joy and dick jokes and beer and happy times? Remember our old dad? He was so funny, what a card. We had so many good times.

Remember when our old dad abandoned us and left our house to move in with some new, younger, prettier floosy? Breaking all of our goddamned hearts?

Well, our old dad went on a TV show called “Chopped” and made schnitzel as his entree round and it helped him become Chopped champion.

I’m gonna make you proud old dad!

Let’s make some goddamn schnitzel and spaetzle.

Check this shit out! It’s a one day meal! No advanced prep required. Since we want the schnitzel hot and since it cooks fast we are going to make – but not finish – the spaetzle first.

Spaetzle!

For the uninitiated, spaetzle is a German noodle, or dumpling type thing. It is basically a loose pasta dough that is strained through a slotted spoon or spaetzle maker. Boiled for a few minutes and then finished in a saucepan with some melted butter.

I don’t own one of these so I will be using a slotted spoon.

You will need:

1 cup of flour

1 teaspoon of salt

1/2 teaspoon of black pepper plus more to finish.

1/2 teaspoon of NUTMEG!

2 eggs, beaten. Fuck those eggs man! Beat the crap out of them.

1/4 cup milk

1-2 tablespoons of butter to finish.

Some fresh parsley or chives or black pepper to garnish.

Recipe courtesy of my man, Tyler Florence.

Here we go. In a large bowl combine the flour, salt, pepper and nutmeg.

Give these a mix and make a small well in the center of the bowl.

In another small bowl, mix together the beaten eggs and milk and add them into the well of the dry ingredients thusly.

Using a fork, slowly start to drag in the dry mix towards the center of the bowl to incorporate with the egg mixture. You could use your hands but this is a pretty wet dough and you would lose about half of the fucking stuff by it sticking to your hands. Mix it until you have a smooth and loose dough.

Let the dough rest for 15 minutes. Meanwhile get a pot of water on the stove top and bring to a boil. Here’s the fun part. I read many different ways to make the spaetzle into it’s proper shape. Someone suggested using a ziptop bag, cutting the corner off and piping it in the boiling water that way – a technique I use making deviled eggs – but most of the suggestions said to pour the dough into a slotted spoon and force the dough through the slots, directly into the boiling water. That’s exactly what I did.

Kind of a pain in the dick but it did work. I used a plain teaspoon to push the dough through the slotted spoon into the water.

Work in batches and cook for about 3 minutes per batch. Don’t put too much of the dough into the water at the same time.

Remove the cooked spaetzle from the boiling water, give a quick rinse in cold water and place in a bowl until all of the dough has cooked. This will give you a decent amount of spaetzle.

Remember we are going to finish these in a pan with some butter to give them additional flavor and a little color after we make the schnitzel, so for now just cover the bowl with a towel or some plastic wrap and let’s get to the rest of the menu.

I’m going to give you the next two recipes in their entirety but this is a pretty easy meal to put together and you should be able to make the gravy while the schnitzel is cooking. That way all of this shit stays hot at the same time! Bonus!

Schnitzel!

1-2 pounds of boneless sirloin pork chops

salt and pepper

I’m going to give this recipe in stages. First the pork chops. Place down a sheet of plastic wrap, put down a pork chop, cover with another sheet of plastic and pound flat. I used the side of a meat mallet to do mine. The bottom of a cast iron skillet would wallop the shit out of it too. When the chop is sufficiently flat remove from the plastic and season with salt and pepper. Repeat until all of the chops are flattened.

If you’ve ever fried chicken or pork chops this will be a really easy recipe for you. Next we are going to set up the dredge station for coating of the schnitzel.

Flour dredge.

1/2 to 3/4 cups of flour

1/2 teaspoon of salt

1/2 teaspoon of pepper

1/2 teaspoon of garlic powder.

Put all of the ingredients into a bowl or pan and mix to combine.

Egg wash

2 more beaten eggs

1 tablespoon of vegetable oil.

Put in a bowl, or pan and mix to combine.

Bread crumbs.

1 cup of panko breadcrumbs. You know what? Every recipe I read said to use a regular or fine breadcrumb and not to use panko. To this I say TOUGH SHIT! I like panko and I had some on hand and this is my goddamn recipe so piss right off!

1/2 teaspoon of salt

1/2 teaspoon of pepper

1/2 teaspoon of garlic powder.

Put all ingredients into a pan or bowl and mix to combine.

Let’s go ahead and set up a dredge station.

Get a nice large frying pan or skillet on the stove top and add about 1 tablespoon of oil. I also like to add a tablespoon or two of butter at the same time. Get the skillet to a nice medium-high heat.

Let’s do the dredge thing. See how the pans are all lined up next to each other? that’s how this shit works. You do remember proper dredging technique yes?

Using ONE hand place one of the flattened chops into the flour mixture and coat it well. Then take the floured chop and put it in the egg mixture. Coat well and then finally into the breadcrumb mixture, again coating well. You didn’t reach your other hand in there in the middle of doing this did you? Oh goddammit! Just try to use one hand next time that way you only have one dough encrusted hand. OK?

We’re going to cook one schnitzel at a time in the hot skillet. Get that coated meat into the skillet.

Schnitzel cooks pretty quick since we flattened the fuck out of it earlier. If you didn’t get it too flat just adjust your cooking time accordingly. When flattened, these only take about 3 minutes per side. Lift the schnitzel carefully using a spatula so we don’t lose that coating. give it a turn.

Three more minutes and you are set. THAT is some standard schnitzel right there. Some people just plate this along with the spaetzle and put a little lemon wedge on it and chow the fuck down. If you are cooking more than one schnitzel preheat your oven to about 275 and place a baking dish in the oven. Keep each schnitzel warm in the oven until all are cooked.

We are not making basic schnitzel remember?

NEIN!

We are making jagerschnitzel. So let’s get a gravy going!

Quick note here! If you are like me and like a nice brown gravy to serve over something that doesn’t produce good gravy makings like say, meatloaf or pork chops or schnitzel or something like that then you will want to bookmark this page today because we are going to make THAT gravy right here. A perfect brown gravy for all of your basic gravy needs.

Let’s do this shit!

Mushroom cream gravy!

Know what we are going to use since we don’t have good gravy makings or drippings for this gravy?

BACON AND ONION MOTHERFUCKERS!

3-4 slices of bacon chopped into pieces. (Lardons! Lardons!)

1/2 cup of finely chopped onion

1 cup of sliced mushrooms

2 tablespoons of flour

2 cups of beef stock

1/4 cup of red wine. I used a nice malbec here for it’s peppery notes

1/2 teaspoon of pepper

1/2 teaspoon of salt

1/4 cup of half and half

Get yourself another skillet and cook up that bacon. Remember we are actually making this gravy while we are cooking the schnitzel. I made 4 schnitzel and the timing of the cooking was perfect for the gravy to finish at the same time.

After the bacon has cooked really crispy, remove it from the pan and let it drain on a paper towel. Next we are going to saute the onion in the bacon grease. Oh shit yeah!

After about 5 minutes the onion should be translucent and cooked a bit. Now we add in the mushrooms and let them cook with the onion for about 5 minutes.

When the 5 minutes are up we are going to add in the flour to the onion/mushroom mixture. This will give the mushrooms a slightly chunky appearance but it builds a really fucking sweet roux.

After about 2 minutes of cooking, add in the beef stock and the wine and let this reduce down by about 1/4 to 1/2 in volume.

When the sauce has reduced, add in the half and half and let simmer for a couple of minutes. You should be looking at a pretty fucking sexy gravy at this point.

Season this with some salt and pepper to taste. A couple of things here. You may notice that I didn’t use garlic. THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH ME! This is a traditional German gravy and most traditional German sauces don’t use garlic. I probably will next time because this needed just a little jazzing up. The gravy did have a nice acidic-winey flavor that is very familiar in German cooking but if you wanted to use this recipe for the aforementioned other applications you could even add some thyme or paprika here along with the garlic. I stayed traditional and was not disappointed.

Finally, everything has been cooked and we are ready to get to the fucking finish line!

Grab yet another skillet – yes, I know it’s a lot of goddamn skillets but we’re working quick here – and melt a tablespoon of butter in it. Toss in a scoop of the spaetzle and let it cook until the spaetzle has a little color to it. Just a minute or two.

Take the cooked buttery spaetzle and put on a plate. Get one of them schnitzels and put on the plate next to it – you will notice that I’ve shown restraint and have not dropped a single “Schnitzengruben” reference yet – now ladle some of that gravy on part of the schnitzel and on some of the spaetzle.

Remember those bacon bits from before? Thought I forgot about them didn’t you?

Yeah, you know what we’re doing next. Use that bacon as a garnish!

This is all of the things right about German food. You know what is a real star player here? The nutmeg in the spaetzle. Who knew? Crispy crunchy breaded pork, savory pasta-like spaetzle and a glorious mushroom cream gravy.

Fuck yes we did!

Once again thanks for indulging me and why don’t you go ahead and do your own self a favor and indulge in this tasty bastard.

Und now iz za time wie danz!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jWPhlJWMrUA

PEACE!