Schnitzel

[nickrey]

I always deep fry schnitzel at 180C until golden as I often find shallow frying temperatures to difficult to maintain with accuracy. Proper deep frying at a constant temperature leads to minimal oil absorption. There is a reason why the Japanese use deep- rather than shallow- frying for similar preparations.

[heidih]

Mjx - what kind of meat as that may affect time, thickness and temp? My dad and his wife do not care for chicken breast so they save the breasts from the whole chickens they buy and do their Schnitzel with them. We have always in all the Austro-Hungarian families done the flour, egg wash and plain bread crumbs. We rarely did the Natur style (just flour and then sauced). As a kid it was generally done with pork as veal was not readily available, Chicken breast seemed to elbow its way in during the 80's. It is comfort food to me and we also always had the puffing and separation between coating and meat. Personally I like a little Dijon mustard on the side and some spicy cranberry sauce - the latter somewhat like what Kerry Beal mentions with the hot pepper jelly.

As to deep-frying - as mentioned earlier that seems like tonkatsu to me - delicious but not what I expect when I hear Schnitzel.

[nickrey]

I've done both and was taught how to crumb (as you do) from Austrian in-laws. Tradition aside, I think the deep frying gives a better product - not on a different scale but along the same scale.

[Mjx]

Mjx - what kind of meat as that may affect time, thickness and temp? My dad and his wife do not care for chicken breast so they save the breasts from the whole chickens they buy and do their Schnitzel with them. We have always in all the Austro-Hungarian families done the flour, egg wash and plain bread crumbs. We rarely did the Natur style (just flour and then sauced). As a kid it was generally done with pork as veal was not readily available, Chicken breast seemed to elbow its way in during the 80's. It is comfort food to me and we also always had the puffing and separation between coating and meat. Personally I like a little Dijon mustard on the side and some spicy cranberry sauce - the latter somewhat like what Kerry Beal mentions with the hot pepper jelly.

As to deep-frying - as mentioned earlier that seems like tonkatsu to me - delicious but not what I expect when I hear Schnitzel.

Heidi, this was pork. I had this idea that, given that the meat is pounded thin, and veal, pork, and chicken breasts all tend to run dry, the handling could be the same for any one of them, so I thought I'd ask more generally; evidently not the case!

I salted the meat, ground pepper over it (I wanted to get these worked into the meat a bit), then pounded them not-thin-enough.

I then did them natur style, with a bit of salt, pepper, and nutmeg mixed into the whole rice flour I used.

I gave them 3 minutes on the first side, which gave alovely golden brown result (I used grapeseed oil), but the second side was tricky, since the meat curled (because the fibres weren't broken down enough?), so they didn't lay flat, and mostly were only exposed to direct heat if I pressed down on them, which I didn't discover until about 2 minutes into the second side.

They were pretty tasty, anyway, although a little too thick and dry.

Did I make an insane number of mistakes?