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

To Seperate The Yolk From The White

So originally the plan was to make Belgian Waffles, buuut that soon turned to shit when my waffle iron decided to sink before it's maiden voyage, so to speak. In short, this dessert turned into a hastily improvised pancake-esque mess. Fuck it, after a few initial test runs, I actually got some pretty good results!

Here's what ya need to prepare dark, bitter, abrasive waffles (or thick as fuck pancakes):

If, unlike me, your waffle iron is fully operational, pre-heat it. Thats the first thing ya want to do.

Lay out 3 seperate mixing bowls, and divide your ingredients thusly: Sift two cupfuls of plain flour into your first bowl, and then add 2 tsps of baking powder, and a pinch or two of salt.
Next bowl: Crack your eggshells, and using your hand to strain the whites, pour them into the bowl, ensuring that the egg yolk stays in the palm of your hand, and the whites slip through the cracks in your fingers.
Third bowl: drop your four yolks into this bowl. Most recipes I consulted for inspiration/ripping-off used either plain or caster sugar. I decided to go for my own personal favourite, dark muscovado. Whichever sugary goodness you go for, dump 2 tbsps of it into your egg YOLK bowl.
Before you go any further, scoop out 4 tbsps of butter, and put them in a FOURTH bowl (this is getting fucking stupid, I know) and stick this bowl in the microwave for a minute or so to melt the butter.

Take your whisk and beat the absolute hell out of your egg yolk/sugar combo until it resembles a disgusting sludgy mess. Add in your hot melted butter, and two mugs worth of milk. Get beating again. The use of muscovado made this a bit... grainier than most recipes will be, so just really stir it up, and use the face of a spoon to crush all the granules down as much as possible.

Once that's done, pour this mixture into your flour/baking powder bowl, and yeah, you guessed it, get back to beating fuck out of it with that whisk.

This is the part I fucked HATE. If you don't have an electric mixer/whisk thingy, don't even bother attempting this next stage, you'll be there for hours. Use your electric mixer to whip up your egg whites into a frothy, meringue-y substance, until it's pretty much white as a ghost, and solid as a rock.

In the recipes I read in cookbooks, and online, they all describe the next stage as 'folding' your whites into the rest of the mixture. I have no fucking clue what that's supposed to mean, so I interpreted it as best I could, and plopped the whites into the mix in stages, using a ladle to cover each scoop of white with the rest of the mix. I literally had no fucking Idea what I was doing, but I kept doing it regardless.

Once all your white mix is enveloped in dark brown muscovadian goodness, light a fire under your frying pan, and splash some oil in there. Obviously if this was an ACTUAL Belgian waffle recipe, you'd simply pour the mixture into your waffle iron. But, y'know...

While your pan is heating, prepare your 'toppings'. I went for a sliiightly-too-expensive vanilla ice cream, dark morello cherries (why the fuck does nowhere have FRESH cherries this time of year? fuck supermarkets) and dark, slightly bitter, Swiss cooking chocolate. Break off about half the bar of choc, pop it in a bowl and microwave it for 2 minutes until it melts into utter fucking foodporn heaven.

Leave your chocolate to the side for now, and either check on your waffles, or pour your batter into the frying pan. Give it just a minute or so on a high heat for either side, you don't want the batter burning or going flat. Flip it out of the pan (onto the floor on your first attempt if you're me. the ten-second-rule applies here). Apply your toppings in a suitably pretentious fashion, et voila!

If you're surprised by how good this actually tastes, then you'll think you can handle a second portion. Believe me, you can't. Didn't stop me from pushing my ironclad (Steff! I got to use it in a sentence! yesss) stomach to it's absolute limit.

The obligatory, VERY loosely connected to the title/dessert theme, clip that follows features the almighty Jeff Walker. If you don't know what band he fronted, jump off a tall building.