Jagerschnitzel with Sourdough Spaetzle

 The Hubs asked for Jagerschnitzel as his special Father's Day dinner. And I did my best to accommodate, except that we could not find pre-breaded pork or veal cutlets ANYWHERE, and I didn't have enough time on Father's Day to make everything from scratch. So, this dinner was a little belated, but still delicious and well deserved. I'm thankful to have husband who is a true partner in marriage, sharing responsibility for things around the house, taking care of the kiddo, while also having our own areas of expertise.  I do most of the cooking, not because he CAN'T, but because I enjoy it more.  He enjoys working with his hands and fixing things.  It's a pretty great situation.

Anyway...FOOD.  

I bought this spaetzle maker on Amazon---not joking, looked it up--A FULL DECADE AGO. 2013.   That's pre-kid, we still owned The Inside Scoop--purchased in June (full tilt ice cream season) so this was probably a stress purchase. And it's just sat in the drawer, in the package, since that time.  The spider strainer was a much more recent purchase,  but still brand new.  Nice to finally get to use kitchen gadgets. :)

I used my sourdough discard to make this recipe--most recipes I found online called for a full cup (300g) of discard, which I didn't have.  And there was a whole range of recipes out there--some called for 1 egg, some for 4, etc.  So, I opted to just modify the recipe that came on the package of my spaetzle maker.

Because making THREE things from scratch for the same dinner is a hefty lift on busy summer weekends, I made the spaetzle the day before and put it in the fridge. Then day of, I sautéed it in some butter, seasoned with some salt, pepper, and parsley.  Worked perfect.

INGREDIENTS: 

Spaetzle (Makes....a lot.  Like probably 8-10 side servings. We froze half.)

• 100g sourdough discard
• 325g all-purpose flour
• 2 eggs
• 2 tsp chicken bouillon powder
• ~200mL water (more or less as needed for consistency)
• 1/2 stick butter

Schnitzel

• 1 lb pork chops hammered to ~1/4-1/2 inch thick, or a butterflied pork loin, divided into 6 sections and pounded flat
• Dry dredge: 1/3 cup flour, 1 Tbsp garlic salt, 1/2 tsp parsley, 1/2 tsp black pepper
• Wet Dredge: 2 eggs, beaten
• Final dredge: 2 cups panko
• vegetable oil for frying
• Lemon wedges for serving

Jager Gravy

• 2 Tbsp butter
• 8 oz button mushrooms, cleaned & sliced
• 1/2 onion, thinly sliced
• 4 Tbsp Tony Chacheres Roux Mix (FYI since the recipe isn't on the can--gravy is 2 Tbsp mix + 1 cup water)
• 2 Cups cool water

DIRECTIONS:

Spaetzle-

1. Start a pot of salted water to boil.
2. In a large bowl, whisk together the discard, eggs, and bouillon.  Mix in the flour--you'll end up with a dry shaggy dough.  Start adding the water and mixing in until dough is smooth, like thick pancake batter.  The idea being that the dough won't just drip through the holes in the spaetzle maker as you add it to the hopper, so you can control the size of the noodles. 
3. Let rest about 15 minutes.
4. Set the spaetzle maker across the top of the pot of boiling water.  Add dough to the hopper in small batches.  Slide the hopper back & forth to press the dough through the holes.
5. Once the noodles start to float up to the surface, it's OK to stir. Let cook for 2-3 minutes, then remove with the spider strainer.
6. Place in a container with some butter & toss. The butter will help keep the noodles from sticking to each other.  If you're making this all the same day, you can serve at this point, or let cool and place in the fridge.  
7. Reheating: Heat 1 pat of butter in a large skillet over medium heat--once melted, add the cold spaetzle (you will likely have to break it apart a bit with your hands) & season to taste.  

Schnitzel-

1. Heat about 1 inch of vegetable oil in a deep pan, like a dutch oven, to avoid splattering.  Target temp is about 330F.
2. Heat oven to 200F (for keeping cutlets warm if needed)
3. Once oil is up to temp, dredge pork one at a time through the flour, then egg, then panko and gently drop into the oil. My pot was able to hold about 2 at a time, so have some paper towels nearby for after they come out of the oil.  Cook for about 2-3 minutes per side, until golden brown.  Remove, drain, then place on a cookie sheet in the oven (if you're trying to keep them all warm for serving).
4. Serve with a light drizzle of lemon juice, and then either add gravy to the top, or on the side.

Jager Gravy-

1. In a large skillet, melt 2 Tbsp butter over medium heat.
2. Add onions & mushrooms and saute until tender & golden.
3. Meanwhile, in a medium saucepan, combine the water and roux mix, whisk, and then heat to boiling.  Let boil for 1 minute then drop temp to simmer.
4. Add mushrooms & onions to the gravy and let simmer until ready to serve. (I then used that skillet to heat up the spaetzle I'd made the day before.)

Served this up with some sauerkraut for the full German experience...and some green beans, because vegetables are important. :)

Also, as a point of process...even though the Aldi website may not mention it...they DO have pre-breaded veal cutlets in the freezer section, if you want to make this & are short on time.  Found this out later. *sigh* Ah well--since we have frozen spaetzle now, that means next time we want this dish, all I have to make is the gravy!

Sourdough Stories, Chapter 8: Chicken & Homemade Egg Noodles

When I go to visit my folks in my hometown, there's a better than 70% chance my mom will make her famous chicken & noodles while we're up.  She stews the chicken to make a broth, then adds the noodles, lets it simmer for a long time, and by dinner, it's deliciousness served over mashed potatoes ("carbs on carbs" we joke--a midwestern specialty).  When I grew up Mom would also serve it with a side of buttered bread--the perfect carb trifecta (Note: this was the 90s, when carbs were considered a healthy primo-energy source, not the sadly demonized shadow they currently exist in).

When I make it, sometimes I serve over mashed potatoes, sometimes not, but always add some frozen vegetables to make it a more complete meal.  And in general, always make it with Reames frozen egg noodles.  

I saw a recipe on Pinterest for using sourdough discard in egg noodle dough, and the weather was a little gross this week, so it seemed a good time for some homemade chicken & noodles.  We had a 10 lb bag of chicken leg quarters to use up (we decided to go in on a cow with my folks, so we're needing to clean out the freezer a bit), so last weekend I did roasted chicken & potatoes in the oven with half, and then cooked the rest in the Instant Pot with a couple cups of chicken broth.  Once the chicken had cooled, I shredded it (made about 4 cups) and put it in the fridge for this recipe later, strained the stock from the Instant Pot & put it in a separate container (also made about 4 cups).

Noodles (makes about 2 lbs of noodles):

3 cups AP flour

3-4 eggs (I started with 3, but the dough was really crumbly & dry so I added another)

1 cup of sourdough discard

For this part--super simple. First thing in the morning, I put all the ingredients in my Kitchenaid stand mixer with a dough hook attachment, and then let it mix for about 10 minutes.  Then I transferred the dough ball to another bowl, covered it and let it hang out all day while I was at work.

When I got home, I split the dough in half, then rolled it out to about a 1/4-1/2 inch thick (I need to get some rolling pin spacers so I can actually tell how thick dough is...in my mind it was nice and thin, but really it probably needed to be thinner, as we'll discuss later.)  Then I used a pizza cutter to slice them into about the size of Reames noodles (1/2 inch wide by about 2-3 inches long)--enlisted the help of Lil' Man for a bit of it.

We only needed about a pound for the soup so I put the other half on a cookie sheet in the freezer, then bagged them up the next morning.

Soup (makes 7-8 servings):

4 cups chicken stock (preferably homemade)

6 cups water

3 tsp chicken bouillon powder

4 cups pre-cooked shredded chicken

ground dried rosemary

onion powder

garlic powder

black pepper

12 oz bag frozen mixed vegetables (ours had green beans, peas, carrots & corn)

12-16 oz of fresh egg noodles

Directions:

Heat the stock, water, and bouillon powder over medium heat in a large stock pot until bubbling.  Then add the chicken, seasonings, and vegetables, cook for about 6 minutes over medium, then add the noodles.

The noodles fattened up immediately after we added them--this was the moment where I realized I hadn't made them thin enough.  I stirred the pot constantly for about 5-10 minutes, then turned off the heat, covered, and let it sit for about 10 minutes.  The original recipe said they should only take about 2-4 minutes (Clue #2 that maybe I'd cut them too thick).  They were also still tasting a bit bland after only 5-10 minutes so I wanted them to have a bit more time to soak up the chicken broth flavor.  But maybe a consequence of my adding an extra egg was that they didn't want to absorb as much.  

The extra sit time seemed to help with that, and they "deflated" a bit with time--I was worried that they would overcook but that wasn't an issue. In fact, in a few of the thicker ones when I bit into it, the center was still dry flour.  

This is one of those dishes where it actually tastes better the next day.  I had some leftovers over the weekend and the noodles were perfect at that point, had really soaked up a lot of that flavor.  I'll play around with the cook time a bit with the other half of the batch that we froze.  I definitely think we'll make these again--it was relatively low effort. I might try a different cut, like thin squares instead of the strips.