My Wife’s Schnitzel: A Love Letter

Written listening to……Rod Stewart - Gasoline Alley

My Wife’s schnitzel is often on my mind…….

It’s extremely close to my heart (and my mouth) for a lot of reasons.  There isn’t much I love more than to get stuck right into it.  

I couldn't think of a better topic for my second, and very much long awaited love letter for whatever this blog is! 

Cooked by my wife, it's my favourite meal by some distance.  Not any old schnitzel, it has to be my wife’s schnitzel.  It’s not, however, my death row meal - I would never want to know when I will experience my wife's schnitzel for the final time.  I feel that in itself is another blog topic to add to my ever expanding list of topics that I’ll never find the time to write about.

I’m listening to Rod Stewart! That doesn’t happen all that often, it’s a fairly unique moment.  It’s a long story as to why, but I am being forced on a daily basis to listen to someone else’s choice of ‘great music’. I say forced, I signed up for it but it really is a story for a different day.  Maybe another topic for the list?

It seems quite apt though.  I feel like Rod would know a good schnitzel when he sees or tastes one.  He’s a well travelled and worldly man who I’m sure has had many schnitzels offered up on a platter.

I'm unsure if I would want him to try my wife’s schnitzel, he’d likely compliment it much better than I can.  He’s a bit of a charmer!  Maybe he’d write a song about it?!  Before I know it he’d wheedle his way in and my wife’s schnitzel would then be Rod’s schnitzel. I can’t take that risk…..best not invite him round for dinner!

So…..my wife’s schnitzel!  

Succulent and tender, crispy on the outside and unbelievably juicy.  It's so flavoursome and rich but also has the most perfect sour piquance which means you can just keep eating it! It’s a joy to behold, it's filled and more importantly cooked with so much love.  A foundation of our marriage and something I hold so dear.  For reference, it’s a pork schnitzel born out of the German heritage in my wife’s family.

My wife first made it for me on our third date.  She’ll say it was our second, I’m convinced it was our third or maybe fourth, I don’t think it was as late as our fifth, but who really knows?!  This was in the early days; the slightly awkward days when we were both maybe hiding how keen we were in the hope to ‘play it cool’.  These were the days where we would just cook for each other, spend evenings watching Masterchef Australia, drinking wine and laughing for hours. It’s easy for those happy memories to merge and blend. 

This occasion was different.  From the moment Sas said she was making it, this meal seemed to mean something significant.  Her excitement to be sharing it with me was palpable - if she was Marti Pellow she probably would have said she could feel it in her fingers and her toes.  Which is funnily enough how I would describe where I find my feelings after eating my wife’s schnitzel!  It’s all encompassing.

I remember heading straight from work, probably making a really weak excuse to leave early in the excitement to see her and her impending schnitzel!  

Arriving at her house, the kitchen was busy, pots and pans all on the go.  Sas excitedly told me that she was cooking me her Omi’s schnitzel.  Her favourite memory.  Her eyes were glistening, the pride was oozing and she said she’d been cooking all afternoon.  She wanted it to be just like she had always remembered it, the full shebang.

I felt so privileged, so looked after, so safe and so secure for what was only a third date (or fourth or fifth).  I’m not sure either of us really appreciated the real significance of that moment at the time.  But that’s the power of food, right?

Prior to this, my experience of new people in my life cooking for me was largely set around fear, over complication and occasionally an outright ‘No!’.  It’s the curse of being a chef.  The least picky and most appreciative diner, hidden behind a cloak of assumed demanding arrogance.  Cooking for me (as with just about any chef) with any sort of consideration, sharing, generosity and in particular any sort of heart will bring a smile to my face.  A smile much larger than any flavour, technique or cooking skill could draw.  As chefs, when we eat we just want to see you, the cook; on the plate or simply in person, that’s it!  The food is just the carrier.

What Sas did that night was lay out her entire heritage, her entire food life; all the memories!  She opened up her heart, lightly bashed it, coated it in breadcrumbs, shallow fried it and laid it all out for me to see.  She took down all the walls and welcomed me into some of her most special memories.  This was cooking from the heart.  Right from deep inside the heart.  A place no one else can get to.  You have to be let in.  We all have that space.  It’s filled with food, you might not have found it yet, but it’s there - keep looking!  It’s a happy place.  It’s warm and it’s secure.  Occasionally it’s protected by some grief or maybe even been built by some grief but it’s where we store our happiest memories.  To let someone else in is unbelievably special and a true gift.  It’s the ingredient in the kitchen that no one talks about enough! It’s the ingredient I wished we would all share more often - the world would be a much happier place.

The menu was extensive, no wonder it took all afternoon! 

Braised red cabbage - deliciously seasoned, better than mine, red cabbage! A much needed ego sapping red cabbage for me! A bringing me back down to Earth to reassess my ideas on great red cabbage, kind of red cabbage! There was some mash, delightfully home made.  Chef mash is sometimes too buttery, sometimes too smooth, often, dare I say it, too indulgent.  Another over complication from the professional cooking world.  The pork was laid out on cling film, lightly flattened but not to the extent you might usually associate with a schnitzel. 

My wife's schnitzel is considerably less battered than most - one of its greatest USPs.  It leaves it far more real in its tenderness, allows for far better cooking and much more enjoyable eating.

Fresh breadcrumbs were in a tray; next to it, some beaten eggs in a tray; next to that, flour in a tray - this was a pane station! Set up and organised - enough to turn any cook on! Paneing is a rigmorale.  Lets not beat around the bush (or the schnitzel), it’s a messy and wasteful pain in the arse but also a sign of true effort.  Especially with fresh breadcrumbs!  This was a meal set around the requirements of processes.  Not one that can have corners cut.  It was obvious that this was the whole hog, obvious that this is what this dish deserves and likely how it had been made every other occasion it’s ever been cooked.  The sort of generational family recipe that can never be disrespected by half measures or searching for shortcuts!

There was this mysterious bowl of semi-curdled milk and faded green/grey beans on the side. I have never been one to successfully hide how I am feeling and was probably, without awareness giving off some confused facial expressions.  This was something (potentially a catastrophe) I had never seen before, I was trying to figure out if it was finished or what it actually was going to be used for.  The last thing I wanted to be was rude, confused and tentatively ask ‘erm…what on Earth is that?’  

I know now that it was the jewel in this schnitzel’s crown!  Omi’s legendary green bean salad.  

As with the rest of this meal, there are strict rules!  It must be made with tinned green beans, it must be made with a dressing of milk and vinegar and it must have chopped up gherkins, pickle juice and some raw chopped onion in it.  It also must be made and seasoned by eye.  This is a precise process that requires a lot of adjusting and the sort of instinct that can only be passed down through generations.  More effort, even less corners being cut.  This dish seemed like it was the beating heart of the meal.  The generational pride of this side dish was obvious.  Its roots are so deep in so many ways, particularly in its economical stance towards ingredients.  Totally delicious on a budget and a good reminder that food from the heart always wins over lavish ingredients!

I was told I was going to love it.  At the time I wasn't sure but she was absolutely right, I adored it.  I adored the way she spoke about it.  Every nostalgic nerve ending twitching with every word.  Even the way she looked at it while she spoke of it.  I adored the tangy richness of the lightly curdled milky dressing, the crunch of the onions, the very unique bounce that only tinned vegetables can give, the perfect accompaniment to be splattered all over a lovely, rich, juicy schnitzel.  I absolutely lapped it up!

It’s hard to pin point significant markers or moments in our relationship.  The time line is fairly merged (as you can see from this third, fourth or fifth date debate).  We were one of those couples that met and then never left each other's side. I already knew she could chop an onion well, that was a secret test I gave her on our first date.  The next potential marker came this particular night…..

My sensory food brain kicked right into gear with the scent billowing from a simmering pan……

Do I smell brown butter?.......

Yes I do!......having an internal Delboy esque ‘Play It Cool’ moment, I asked, with what I hoped was just the right level of ‘lets not get too excited and marry her right now’, what the brown butter was for?

She said it was to spoon over the mash and schnitzel.  I had a stream of internal rounds of applause and Mexican waves going on, my mind was very much the office from The Wolf of Wall Street…

I’m not sure how long I was unconscious for but after picking myself up off the floor, I had to spend the rest of the evening resisting the urge to ask her to marry me there and then, on what was only our second, third, fourth or whatever date it was, date.

Not only did she know what brown butter was but she knew how to make it really well.  I’m unsure if she knew that it was also the key to my heart or maybe that was just fate?

Is Rod Stewart a brown butter kinda guy? I’m not sure? Maybe that’s where I have the upper hand on him.  My wife covering her schnitzel in brown butter would maybe be a step over his line?  Maybe brown butter is what he famously didn't want to talk about?!

I’ve never been one for a quiet, hyper organised kitchen - I love it a bit busy and hectic.  It’s all about the sights, sounds and the atmosphere.  It’s the sizzling, the smells of various things toasting or aromatically simmering.  It's the noise of the oven door opening and closing.  There has to be a bit of a chaotic rhythm. There has to be noise, there has to be some hustle and bustle.  It’s all the processes, all shuffling along together in a sort of chaotic orchestra playing some sort of chaotic overture.  In my opinion, Ainsley really was right when he told people to rattle those pots and pans.  

My favourite part of my wife's schnitzel overture is definitely the vinegary crescendo!  The breaded pork simmering away in a shallow, hot bath of oil and butter, she dowses it with a Germanic volume of vinegar.  An intense reaction ensues, a contagious bubbling of excitement that starts in the pan and soon spreads throughout the kitchen.  Everyone’s excited, even the breaded pork!  Internal cheers go around as if someone just dropped a glass in a beer garden.  The fizzing subsides which indicates its time to lift the pork from its buttery bath and rest the schnitzel.  She really did get so many kitchen points from me that night.

The schnitzel joins the mash, cabbage and green bean salad on the plate before it's all drowned in that heavenly brown butter with a big splodge of mustard applied to the side of the plate.  Just enough mustard to push the fine line between heart warming and heart burn.  A perfect pungent, tangy, sharp and spicy disguise for my obvious feelings of love and total adoration for this woman (and her schnitzel) on what was only our third or fourth or fifth date.  

After all, I just wanted to ‘play it cool’ Steve, play it cool…….thankfully it worked!

Up yours, Rod! Her schnitzel’s mine!