Articles of Mastication

Wiener schnitzel

Since running Zagrebački Odrezak as a Sunday brunch item a couple of weeks ago, I’ve had a pow’rful hankering for Wiener schnitzel. I only got around to shopping for the veal last night and, as luck had it, the supermarket had none to offer. So I bought some inexpensive pork steaks, trimmed most of the fat and pounded them escallope. They were then floured, eggwashed and breadcrumbed, and I pan-fried them in clarified butter.

Since pork is not the traditional meat for Wiener schnitzel, I felt relatively comfortable taking other liberties with the preparation, such as melting Emmenthaler cheese atop the cutlet and positioning it between slices of toasted wheat bread with typical sandwich ornaments. Wiener schnitzel is also, in its purest form, served with little more than potato salad and a wedge of lemon, but I ran a russet potato through the mandolin and fried the resultant shoestrings.

In the wilds of America, this would commonly be breaded with flour only, receive the benefit of a ladle of milk gravy and then be termed ‘Country Fried Steak’. But it doesn’t really matter what you or anyone else decides to call it since it’s already gone.