Viennese schnitzel

Breaded fried cutlets are one of the simplest dishes. They require few ingredients apart from meat, breading components and frying fat, and cook very quickly thanks to their thinness. I would almost go so far as to call them easy, except for the little hassle of frying.

My own desire to fry up some chops was sparked during a recent press trip to Vienna, organized by the Vienna Tourist Board, where I had the chance to take a cooking class focusing on the city’s legendary Viennese schnitzel at Meissl & Schadn, a restaurant specializing in it. The funny thing about fried cutlets is that, no matter how simple they are, the slightest variation in ingredient and method can have a profound impact on the results, and wiener schnitzel is a great example. A good one, most will tell you, features a thin (often the size of a comic plate) and tender veal escalope encased in an airy, puffy jacket of fine, golden breading, its surface undulating hills and valleys created by the ballooning expansion of steam below. This is distinctly different from the crispy strands of tempura or the more adhesive coating of so many other breaded and fried schnitzels around the world.

Achieving this result requires careful attention to a few key points.

The calf

Viennese schnitzel is traditionally prepared with veal, usually the lean round cut; however, many recipes can be adapted to work with substitutions like pork or chicken. You can ask your butcher to cut and pound the schnitzels for you, or buy a round piece of roast and do it yourself. If you do, be sure to first trim the roast of any silverskin, sections of fat, or tendon.

A one-pound round roast yields enough cutlets to feed two people very generously or four people more moderately. If you want to go the two-serving route and make those LP-sized cutlets I mentioned above, you’ll need to butterfly them, cutting across the grain to form about a 1/4-inch slice of meat, but being careful not to slice all the way through to separate it from the roast. A second parallel cut, also 1/4 inch thick, can then be made to form a larger butterflied cutlet. Alternatively, cut the roast into 1/4-inch-thick slices, which will yield four smaller cutlets.

It’s easiest to pound the chops between sheets of plastic, using the flat side of a meat mallet. A zipped bag opened on two sides, leaving it tied on one side, works great. You want to pound the meat all over, starting in the center and working toward the edges, until it is about 1/8 inch (3 mm) thick all over. The meat contracts when fried, so pounding it so finely will result in a cooked cutlet that won’t appear as thin as when raw.

Such thin cutlets can be difficult to handle without tearing, especially if they are larger, but fear not: it’s easy to repair them during the breading process, which will hide any holes or imperfections.

The importance of humidity for swelling

The breading of the Viennese schnitzel should rise and expand during frying. There are a few things that contribute to this. One is the breading ingredients themselves, which I’ll explain below. The other is moisture, which generates steam during frying, creating puffy pockets. In Kenji’s cutlet recipe for The New York Times, he suggests the clever trick of brushing pounded chops with vodka before breading them, which quickly turn to steam. This is an interesting technique, one that you should use if you have vodka on hand and don’t mind adding it to your food.

I have found that a well-timed seasoning of salt on the chops is also very effective. By pounding your cutlets and salting them right away, you’ll have time to let them rest while you prepare everything else: set up a breading station, heat the oil, etc. During this time, the salt will draw water from the meat and dissolve in it, forming a brine on the surface. The chops should not sit long enough for the surface brine to dry, so when you start the dredging process, you will have a good amount of moisture on the surface of the meat, which will also steam and expand as you fry.

Breading

In order for the breading to swell and spread around the cutlet, it must be applied evenly over the entire surface. The flour should lightly dust each part of the meat, the egg should coat it well without dry spots, and the breadcrumbs should do the same. There is an art to applying the breadcrumbs, making sure they completely cover the veal without being pressed into it, which could cause it to stick and not expand.

The breadcrumbs themselves are just as important: they should be plain, pale, not toasted and very fine. The paleness ensures that the final cutlet is golden brown when fried and not deeply browned. If you start with toasted breadcrumbs or a more golden crust, you risk getting a final schnitzel that is too dark.

At the same time, if the breadcrumbs are too coarse, they will fail to form a barrier that seals well enough around the chop to expand and swell without allowing steam to escape from cracks and openings that are too large. This means that panko is not a good choice here, unless you first blend it in a blender until it is very fine (in which case, it is a great choice).

Don’t wait long between breading and frying, as you need the surface moisture of the meat to stay under the breading layer and not soak into it; otherwise, you will lose some of its steam expansion potential. It’s best to work with one cutlet at a time, passing it through the breading station and frying it before moving on to the next one.

In most recipes that involve dredging, the best technique is to use the wet hand/dry hand method, in which you use one hand for the flour and bread crumb applications and the other for the egg. This helps prevent your fingers from getting clogged with their own breading as you go from dry to wet to dry. However, with schnitzel, and especially the classic large pieces of schnitzel, you really can’t successfully lift and transfer the thin sheets of meat without using both hands every step of the way. I know this because I made the mistake of trying to use one hand for every step in Vienna and almost saw my schnitzel tear in half under its own weight. Just accept that you will need to wash your hands promptly after applying the breading each time.

Fat and frying

Lard is the most traditional fat for Viennese schnitzel, but clarified butter is another very common option. Neutral frying oil is also suitable. If you want some lard or butter flavor, you can use a mixture of mostly neutral frying oil with clarified butter or melted lard, which reduces the cost and saves you having to buy large quantities of lard or butter just for frying, while still retaining some of their flavor.

You need a generous amount of fat in the pan so that the cutlet floats without touching the bottom. The fat must also be very hot, around 400°F (205°C). This is high for frying, but it helps quickly generate the steam we’re trying to create while the breading still has some elasticity. At the same time, because the chops are so thin, higher heat helps ensure a perfectly browned crust in the quick time it takes to cook the meat.

When frying, try to rotate the pan gently to minimize hot and cold spots forming in the oil. However, be careful: you don’t want to spill it all over your stove or yourself. You can also gently baste the top of the frying cutlet with fat, which will help it cook quickly and develop that puffy effect.

Portion

The Viennese schnitzel doesn’t require much. A few lemon wedges, of course – the acidity is key to balancing all that richness – and if you want capers, maybe a fillet of anchovy, on the plate. As a side dish, the traditional choice is erdäpfelsalat, the creamy and equally golden Austrian potato salad.