February 24, 2018

Schnitzel Champignon

Name: Schnitzel Champignon
Prep time: 20 min
Cook time: 30 min
Total time: 50 min
Ingredients: 2/3 c flour (or as needed for dredging); 2 eggs (large); 2 c bread crumbs; 1 tbsp parsley (dried); 1 tbsp granulated garlic; 2 tsp seasoning salt; 8 pork cutlets; 1 tsp salt; 2 c mixed mushrooms; 1/4 c butter; 1/4 c cooking sherry; 1 tbsp worchestershire; 1/4 c beef broth; 1/2 tsp salt; 3 egg yolks (large); 2 tsp lemon juice; 3/8 c butter (melted); 1/2 tsp salt

You don’t have to be Austrian to love schnitzel! I make a delicious Schnitzel Champignon which is a little different than the standard schnitzel with mushroom gravy that you often see. It can been made with either pork or veal and leftovers are fabulous on a sandwich but more to come on that later!

Take me to the Recipe

Yesterday we celebrated my baby sister’s birthday one day late and to celebrate, we cracked a bottle of bubbly and I made Schnitzel Champignon. While not a dish that is easy to rip off at the last month, it worth taking the time to make.

You can use pork or veal fairly interchangeably in my opinion. Traditionally schnitzel was made with veal but over time, people started using pork because of the expense of veal. I fed six people with enough leftovers for lunch for about $14.00!

You can buy pork tenderloin and slice off thin slices or just buy cutlets from the grocery store. I do whatever is cheapest. For this recipe, I used pork cutlets.

The first step is to lightly pound out the cutlets with a meat tenderizer. Then put together your breading trifecta! Flour, eggs and bread crumbs. If you want to make this gluten free, switch out the flour for potato starch and the bread crumbs for gluten free bread crumbs and you will be good to go.

The plates are set up backwards in the photo. First you take the cutlet and coat both sides in flour. Then you dip it in the eggs and finally into the seasoned bread crumbs.

I don’t add anything to the flour or the eggs but I do add seasoning to panko bread crumbs. Just add some seasoning salt, granulated garlic and dried parsley.

I separate the layers of breaded cutlets with parchment paper so they don’t stick together. At this point, I put the breaded cutlets in the fridge. You can do up to this step up to a day before you will be using the schnitzel.

If you are going to use a deep fryer to cook the schnitzel, you can put it on at this point.

I like to use a mix of mushrooms for Schnitzel Champignon. I like a mix of shitake, oyster, chanterelle and button mushrooms. The photograph does not show the mixture however. If you are starting with dried mushrooms, put them in some hot beef broth before beginning to bread the cutlets. (I know, I know, now you tell me….)

Once you have re-hydrated any dried mushrooms you are using, get a fry pan and add butter, sherry, worchestershire, fresh thyme and sea salt. Toss in your mushrooms and saute until the mushrooms are cooked through.

While the mushrooms are cooking, I make my hollandaise. I use a stainless steel bowl on my smallest burner. I separate out the egg yolks and put them in the bowl and add some lemon juice. Once I have whisked up the lemon juice into the egg yolks, I put the burner on low and put the bowl onto the burner. I whisk continuously until the egg mixture thickens to the stage where you can see the bottom of the bowl when you whisk.

Once the eggs have thickened, I take the bowl off the burner and slowly add melted butter to the sauce. It is really important to go slow so your sauce doesn’t break. One tip for making hollandaise is to keep the heat low so you don’t end up with scrambled eggs and to move the bowl off the heat entirely if you find the eggs getting too hot. If the sauce begins to break, whisk the crap out of the part that is breaking. Set sauce aside and heat up your oil.

You can either shallow fry these or use your deep fryer. I have done it both ways equally successfully. In either case, make sure you work in batches so you don’t drop the temperature of the oil. If the temperature of the oil gets too low, it will result in a very oily schnitzel which will NOT be very yummy at all. Schnitzel does not take long to cook at all and are done once the outside is nicely browned.

To assemble the Schnitzel Champignon, take one or two schnitzels and put onto a plate. Add mushrooms and top with hollandaise. Serve with red cabbage and spatzli and enjoy. Tell me how you liked it!