I’m looking for a good authentic Jaeger Schnitzel recipe. Please don’t just google and link to one. I have tried multiple recipes and none have come close to what I used to have in Germany when I was stationed there. In a couple of restaurants all I could do was sit there and make nummy noises.
So does anyone here make Jaeger Schnitzel and how do you do it? Is it an authentic old German recipe or a more modern take on it? Will I sit there and make nummy noises when eating it?
I know in theory its not that difficult. My assumption is there are a few things to look into. Technique, how to bread it, eggwash or flour, how to tenderize etc. Ingredients, pork or veal, type of bread crumbs etc. And probably the most important, how to make the gravy.
My mother was German and an excellent cook. Her two secrets for Weiner Schnitzel were in the breading and in the frying. She used pork cutlets, the kind that have been machine tenderized like minute steaks. They were dredged lightly with flour, dipped in egg wash and then breaded with crushed saltine crackers. Yes you read that rightly, crushed saltine crackers. She fried the schnitzels until golden brown in a cast iron skillet. The fat she used was margarine, but it has to be the oldfashioned kind not the soft, spreadable stick kind or the tub margarine they sell now.
She never made a gravy or sauce with this, just served it with a wedge of lemon.
I used to eat Jager schnitzel at least once a week when I was in the army in northern Bavaria. In the hotel dining room I frequented it was always made from veal and not breaded. I can’t imagine that dish is particularly hard to replicate.
If it’s any help, the Ox Yoke Inn restaurant at the Amana Colonies in Eastern Iowa make as good a schnitzel (Wiener, Jager, Holsteiner, Ram, you name it) as any I’ve had since leaving Kaiserslautern in 1972. It’s good stuff but made with a pork cutlet instead of veal. In the end it’s just your good old Midwestern breaded pork tenderloin.
I lived in Germany for many years and have to admit i thought Jaeger Schnitzel was a waste of a perfectly good schnitzel…why smear it with gravy?! Then again, people in the US will pour crappy chili on top of a perfectly good cheeseburger, so who am I to complain?
The trick to making a really good (as per original recipe) schnitzel is to use veal. That is a tad pricey here, and finding the right size and cut is key. Most of the great schnitzels in Germany (and Austria and Switzerland) are made from perfect cuts of veal and simply breaded with a very fine bread crumb mixture and then fried in butter in a pan until golden brown.
Using pork instead of veal is OK - but it will never taste like what you remember it tasting like back in your old haunts in Germany. Even in Europe they have “Wiener Schnitzel” (the original Vienna recipe with veal only) or schnitzel “Wiener Art” (Vienna style - meaning pork instead of veal).
Oh, and don’t even think about using some kind of ground veal in a patty - vile stuff.
Yes - even in Europe the price of veal has skyrocketed over the years, so many (if not most) restaurants in the mid-range level will use pork instead of veal. That “Wiener Art” (Vienna “style”) is the legal terminology to ensure everyone knows it is not the original recipe with veal.
You can Google using .de at the end and get all the German language sites with those great old German recipes…yes, they will of course all be in German, but often those pages will offer an English version of their sites. The only slight problem is they of course use the metric system (no big deal to convert) but more importantly, they often use brand names or products not easily found here. We have German friends visiting in two weeks and have given them a short list of ingredients for recipes not easily found here, but found in every German supermarket.
Mader’s Restaurant here in Milwaukee has “Ritter Schnitzel” which to me isn’t much different from Jaeger Schnitzel, so I was pretty jazzed when I saw there was a recipe in a 1971 issue of the Milwaukee Sentinel (they often share recipes from local restaurants).
Unfortunately, it was a crap 1970s recipe that basically said “Pound flat and deep fry” and one of the ingredients was, no lie, “brown gravy”.
I’ll keep searching, because I’m interested too! I’m recalling a fantastic JS I had somewhere around here but can’t for the life of me remember which restaurant it was!
I’ve been to a few restaurants that serve it with what is obviously store bought brown gravy that they threw some mushrooms in.
Looking at the description of Mader’s dish it does sound like Jaeger Schnitzel. Maybe they thought Ritter (knight) sounded fancier than Jaeger (hunter).
I am sorry that I cannot help you much with measurements - when cooking I mostly go by estimates.
For each person one Schnitzel. In Germany, generally Schinkenschnitzel are used, ie cut from the hind leg. Note: That is only the cut of the meat, it is neither salted, smoked nor otherwise cured as Schinken = ham usually is.
For the gravy, I clean about half a pound of fresh mushrooms per person - usually button mushrooms; chanterelles when available. Slice them and fry them in butter, then put them aside.
Chop a shallot very fine and fry it in butter until translucent. Deglaze with chicken stock. Some cooks add white wine. Simmer for a moment and add cream to taste, than add the mushrooms. Thicken with a roux. Sprinkle with freshly chopped parsley.
Note: The cream version is the most common. The secondmost common has no cream, instead concentrated tomato paste and finely chopped bacon bits are added to the shallots. This is obviously heartier and “meatier” in its taste.
Tenderize and flatten the schnitzel with a meat hammer. Dust with flour, wet with beaten eggs, coat with breadcrumbs. Some modern German cooks prefer Japanese panko to traditional breadcrumps, apparently.
Fry in a skillet in concentrated butter.
Serve with the gravy and potatoes; french fries are very common with Jägerschnitzel nowadays.
I’ve only made Wienerschnitzel from veal. Only recently on the Dope did I hear about pork being used (I assumed it would have a different name if it was). Mine is no exotic recipe, egg and bread crumbs with a little salt and pepper and a little lemon zest. I got the lemon from a recipe that was already old when I first saw it long ago. For gravy I’ll just make up something from the ingredients on hand.