Schnit-system

I don't get many chances to be taught new dishes first hand, since I only know one other person who has an interest in food to the degree I do. So when the opportunity arises to have her teach me some new tricks, I jump at the chance. A few nights ago we spent about 4hrs in my kitchen making all sorts of mess as we threw together a schnitzel main course, as well as a dessert at the same time.
Total fucking chaos.

Since this time I was flying solo, and foregoing the dessert aspect, I wasn't sure if it would take more or less time. I was kinda hoping for less. Here's what ya need:

In hindsight, I now know that is FAR too many potatoes and mushrooms, so don't use as many as shown in that photo. I was cooking for two, so adapt your ingredients according to what kinda portion you want.

First off, clean and chop your potatoes, fill a put of water, and bring it to the boil. Dump your wedge-shaped taters in the water and let them boil for a while.

While they're simmering, prep your sauce ingredients. Chop a whole red onion, and slice a few mushrooms, and set those aside for now.

 

Around this time you can drain your part-boiled taters and start prepping them for roasting. I'm not sure if this type of potato has a name or anything, but basically you're gonna coat them in generous amounts of rosemary and thyme before roasting them in the oven.

Pre-heat your oven to gas mark 6, and grab a coupla small plates. Cover one in sunflower oil and the other in a herby coating of rosemary and thyme.

Start spearing your potatoes with a fork, dunking them on the plate of oil, then smearing them around the plate of herbs so they get a good thick covering. Once they look like a whole herd of pungent little chia pets, put them to death by roasting them alive [insert evil genius laugh here].

Okay, so that photo is misleadingly lame, since all the potatoes in the foreground are bald as coots, but it's only because... well to be honest doing the whole herb thing takes fucking ages and I couldn't be arsed after getting about halfway through. So I cheated and just sprinkled the whole tray with herbs after I'd dunked 'em all out onto it. Lazy fucker that I am.

Leave them to roast and move on to the fun part: THE MEAT!
Lay your pork escallopes out on a chopping board or whatever clean work surface you have, and then dump a fucktonne of plain flour over the top, smoothing it all down into even consistency with your hands. Any excuse to touch dead flesh, right? Hey, saves me from resorting to necrophilia on those lonely nights when I don't have anyone to cook with...
Anyway, flip them over and do the same to the other side too.

Once they're well coated in flour, crack an egg onto a plate, and whisk it up into a consistent consistency. My usual verbosity eludes me at this moment in time.

So yeah, that looks fucking revolting. But it's not like thats what you're gonna be eating, it's just a base coat to ensure that your breadcrumbs (lurking in the background of the above photo) stick to your pork. I would have liked to get some more interesting breadcrumbs with other things through 'em, or to even have prepared my own, but laziness struck again, and I wound up just using the leftovers from last time.
Coat each of your sections of deceased pig in egg, then roll them around in the breadcrumbs until they're completely covered, then throw them into the frying pan. Oh yeah, should've mentioned that earlier, pre-heat your pan, and throw in some sunflower oil and a little butter.

 

While those are crisping up, check on your potatoes, and turn them if necessary, making sure they're nice and browned all over and the herbs are sticking to them. Well, thats what SHOULD happen anyway. Turn your oven down a few notches and pop a plate in.
Flip your schnitzel over and add a little more oil in to ensure they don't burn on one side. Cut on to make damn sure they're cooked through, then put them onto that plate you have heating in the oven.

Sauce time! After a little preliminary research online, I discovered that the sauce we had prepared last time was commonly used in a varation of schnitzel called Rahmschnitzel. The sauce is basically just fried onion, mushrooms, and cream.
Dump your diced onion in your now vacant frying pan, shortly followed by the mushrooms, and let them sit browning and shrinking for a little while before you splash in the cream. For the hell of it, I added a little bisto powder to the mix to try and thicken up the cream and give it a little extra flavour.

Remove your potatoes and schnitzel from the oven, plate it all up, and finally fucking eat the damn meal!

Here's some d-beat greatness from a country who don't really have anything to do with this dish. Fuckit, I present to you Sweden's finest; SKITSYSTEM

Rouladen-ial Of Life

I had waited to try this meal for what seemed like forever, ever since I first saw this amazing creation, so when I fiiinally made it over to Germany 3 weeks ago to spend a week with the awesome girl who first told me about it, that was one of the first things we did.
I think we started preparing this meal around 10pm or something ridiculous, which considering it takes around 3 hours to cook, including prep time, was semi-retarded. When I finally got around to eating it, it was a totally sacrilicious experience.

Even though I would unfortunately be making it alone this time, I didn't change a thing about the recipe or the process, since it turned out so goddamn incredible first time around. My only concern was finding decent quality thinly sliced beef, since it's not something that I'd ever used before, and didn't know a whole lot about.
Luckily my local butcher had a pretty incredible selection, and the wee girl of about 13 behind the counter knew exactly what I wanted from my less than eloquent description "uhhhh, it's like a thin steak, but with no fat, and it's real big, like... an A3 sheet of paper?" "ummm, you mean beef ham?". BEEF HAM! Amazing name for it, considering it has fuck all to do with ham. Good ol' retarded Scotland.

Anyway, here's all the stuff you need...

First step would be to dice both your onion and your cornichons, then fry them for a coupla minutes without burning them.

Next up is the fun part! For some reason I can't remember, you need to smash the meat flat, so lay down a big piece of greaseproof paper and sit your beef on top of it. Cover with another piece of greaseproof paper, then take a pot or pan, and start battering the hell out of it.
This is yet another one of those moments where I might come across as mildly psychotic, as I kinda enjoyed the feeling of repeatedly slamming the pan down and seeing the blood spatter out of the lifeless tissue. Mmmurderous.

Top the meat with a LIGHT sprinkling of chilli powder and herbs, you dont wan;t anything to overpower the taste of your filling.

Speaking of the filling, the carnivore in me enjoys the hell outta the fact this dish is basically wrapping meat inside another kind of meat: bacon cubes!
First, spread a tablespoon of mustard on each piece of meat, getting really even, but not too thick, coverage. Next take your bacon cubes and sprinkle a handful on each mustard-coated beef section, and then grab a handful of your fried onions and cornichons and do the same.
Spread them out evenly across the meat, but not too close to edge so they don't fall out when you roll 'em up.

Next you... well, roll them up, basically. No fuckin' shit, right?
Once they're rolled into delicious beef parcels, cut about... say a metre of thread (I'd prefer to have something thicker, twine or whatever, but I don't have any), and wind it around the rouladen several times, then tie a series of overly complex knots (which any good serial killer should already know) to bind them tightly.

This is the last stage before you have nothing to do for a coupla hours. Fire up your frying pan, and lower your delicious meat parcels into the frying pan like Norman Bates disposing of Marion Crane's body in the trunk of her car.

Give them around 5 minutes, just to brown the outside and seal them.

To continue the metaphor, you then push the wrapped victims into water, but best not to use swamp water like Bates, a pot of standard boiling water will do. Cover the top, and leave for around 2 hours, checking on them occaisionally.

While you wait, check out the song that inspired the latest awful metal-tastic pun post title.



Even if you're not much of a death metal aficionado, you cannot deny the power of THAT riff that first rears it's monstrously catchy head around 0:49. The legendary late Chuck Schuldiner is one of the inventors and innovaters of death metal, and with riffs like that, no wonder he's still considered one of the greats. RIP Chuck.

Anyway, where were we? Oh yeah, it's two hours later, because you've sat mesmerised by that riff and played the song a further 23 times.

When we made this meal in Germany, it was served with a whole bunch of sides, including plums in their deliciously syrupy juice. Unfortunately, I'm kinda weird and just don't get the appeal of having sweet things in a main meal (sorry Steff!), so I decided to skip that side dish.

However, there were these awesome ready-made dumpling things, which I later learned I could make using suet. When your rouladen have around 30 minutes left in the pot, fill a bowl with 100g self-raising flour, a pinch of salt, and around 50g shredded suet. Whisk this into a thick, doughy mixture using around 5 tbsps of water, and all your flour and suet has been absorbed into the mixture. Place the dough onto more greaseproof paper, dust your hands with flour before dividing the dough into 8 individual balls.

Drop these into your pot along with your rouladen, cover again, and leave for around 20 minutes.

When your 20 minutes are up, uncover your pot and the dough balls should have expanded out a helluva lot, and absorbed some of that incredible meat stock. Remove your rouladen, place them on a tray, then remove the dumplings with a slotted spoon, and place them on the same tray, and pop it in a pre-heated oven for 5 minutes.

During these 5 minutes, you can prepare your gravy. As I'm sure I've mentioned before, I like my gravy like I like my music; thick, black and sludgey. The amazing juices from your meat should have given you a pretty heady beef stock to work with, but it was still nowhere near thick enough for my liking.
Mix up a decent amount of Bisto gravy, using 4 heaped tsps and hardly any water, so it's thick as fuck. Add it into your beef stock, stirring the whole time, until it thickens up. Skim off the oily fat, and pour the remaining goodness into a gravy boat.

Remove your rouladen and dumplings from the oven, and serve! Then annoy the hell out of whoever you made it for by spending 5 minutes taking a million photos of their dinner...

I gotta say, these turned out incredibly! Admittedly, I was a little surprised that they did seeing as I was flying solo this time, and I didnt really have the benefit of a genuine German carniwhore to make sure I didn't completely fuck it up.

I guess I'll just have to cook 'em for her again to see if I did good, right?