Making Jaegerschnitzel with egg noodles tonight. If I wasn’t so lazy I’d make spaetzle instead of the egg noodles. I’m using thin sliced pork loin chops (well pounded) and panko for the schnitzel. It seems I vary the sauce every time, even tried the trick of thickening it with crumbled ginger snap cookies (it did work, just wasn’t crazy about the flavor). Anybody have a to-die-for Jaegar-gravy recipe? I’ve got regular white mushrooms and some dried porcini. Seems some recipes have sour cream and some don’t, is it supposed to have sour cream?
Any other good schnitzel sauces? It’s good plain but I always want to add a sauce.
I’ve had Jaegerschnitzel several different ways, so I think you have flexibility in the sauce. Some use cream, some don’t. I think I prefer it without.
I would just start by sweating some onions in butter, add mushoorms and cook down, sprinkle lightly with flour to make a roux, then hit it with some wine (white or red would work I think, depends on the meat you’re using). Let the wine cook down, then add some stock (chicken or beef, but veal would be best). Reduce to proper thickness. Season. It’s a basic pan sauce.
If you want to use cream, add it towards the end. I would probably use white wine and some veal demiglace instead of veal stock since I have demi in the fridge. If I was making it with beef, I’d use red wine. Pork, I’d use white wine. Probably white with veal too, but a light red would work.
I don’t think I’d use sour cream. If you did that, I’d call it a stroganoff. Especially if you serve it with noodles instead of spaetzle. I’d avoid cream for the same reason. But it’s easy enough to make the sauce and then split it towards the end and put cream in one half. Try it and see which you prefer.
Thanks. I also prefer it without sour cream but was curious if one was more traditional. I’ve had it in Germany (Bavaria) and it was a dark sauce but still wasn’t sure if maybe it was a regional thing. Your pan sauce is how I’ve usually made it in the past, once using the ginger snaps instead of roux (I also used cold water/cornstarch at least once as well). Demi-glace is a great suggestion.
I need to find out what spices to use to make it taste more ‘German’. I don’t use any garlic and it should be very simple but it’s missing something.
There are regional differences for the same dish in Germany. Where I lived in Hesse, Gruener sauce was common, but drive an hour or 2, and it was not common.
If I remember, I will ask my wife how she would fix a Jaegerschnitzel.
I do have a ~2 month old dry mead (my first and only at this point) that tastes (but doesn’t smell) like a hot, dry Riesling…do people cook with mead? Seems like it might work.
I have learned that I need to be careful with wine types when cooking…some of the reds are so acidic (or maybe tannic) that they can kind of ruin it.
2 month old mead is like 3 day old beer! Give it some time!!
I vary my jaegerschnitzel sauce pretty regularly (sometimes with sour cream, sometimes without, but never with too much!) but butter sauteed mushrooms, flour, then gradually adding in beef stock is the basic recipe, and no seasonings beyond salt and pepper (LOTS of pepper, to my taste!). It’s terribly simple but very good. Haven’t made schnitzel in a while, maybe I’m due again. Lately I’ve been doing a similar sauce served over sirloin steak that I have grilled med-rare and then sliced thinly at a diagonal, which is a huge hit with the family. It’s just a lot less mess than pounding, breading, and frying up schnitzel. I guess its more like beef stroganoff except it is cooked on the grill as a whole, then sliced and served with the sauce.
I’m partial to Oktoberfest with schnitzel. It’s not too heavy like doppelbock but has some body and flavor to it still. Drinkable but not too light.
Just kidding, I hadn’t planned on touching it for a good long time.
O’fest sounds great but my Maerzen is still conditioning. I too like quite a bit of black pepper in the sauce.
Maybe if I tried some goulash spice mix (which I don’t have) if that would give me the flavors I’m missing? I’ve tried a tiny bit of clove and I thought it helped.
Personally, I’d probably use a little thyme and definitely black pepper, but if you’re expecting something “German” then maybe look at some things they use for seasonings in sausage and other savory foods. Juniper, caraway, cardamom are a few that come to mind.
I looked for some of the goulash recipes and caraway seed showed up several times so I was going to try it, with thyme and black pepper. Didn’t think about sausage spices, good call.
I do a variant of my aforementioned “grilled steak with mushroom sauce” courtesy of Andreas Viestad. It uses crushed juniper berries and a healthy splash of akvavit, the majority of which you find here is heavy on the caraway. It also uses gjetost cheese…very interesting sauce! Might be a bridge too far for schnitzel though, unless they were Scandinavian schnitzel.
Ahh, here’s a pic:
And while we’re at it, a pork schnitzel with jaegerschnitzel sauce, and a very ill advised fried mashed potato patty of sorts (hey, I was experimenting!):
Tasted great but still not very ‘German’ imo. I under-spiced it (seasoning was fine), will have to try again on the sauce. I normally wouldn’t eat a portion nearly this big but I just couldn’t stop.
one thing I like to do that might help, which I got the idea from another forum member: sprinkle some fennel seed on your pork before you flatten it out.
Fennel? That sounds nice, although I wonder if we are thinking of the same advice, from Cappozoli…his advice was to sprinkle celery seed (to my recollection!) before flattening them out. Something an old country relative recommended as I recall. That’s what I do! Fennel would be good too, though, I love that spice and use large quantities of it. Might actually give it a slight Italian hint…I’ve associate fennel seed with Italian sausage since I was a kid and picked them out of the sausage on pizzas…
it was Capp. I don’t ever have celery seed, so I used fennel seed (fairly close, except for the licorice hints) and it was very nice. thanks for the clarification.
To the OP, I believe when I was in Deutchland, that the traditional we were served
at the gasthoff was without sour cream in the sauce. It was nice clearish brown
gravy with the champignions marinating therein…I am reminded of the gravy
when we make a McCormic packaged brown gravy mix…
