Jaegerschnitzel with Spaetzle

Writing about my grandfather in yesterday’s post reminded me of this recipe, something that he’d be far more likely to eat than the healthy stuff I posted yesterday. After all, it doesn’t get much better than fried pork.

I write a lot about my father’s family, the Italian side. My Italian relatives have always been very loud and very Italian-American, and they so fit a certain stereotype that they’ve become easy to write about. Also, considering the fact that this is a food blog and the Italian-American food culture is so strong, I have been pretty one-sided in my depictions of my family: my mother’s side is a combination of German and Irish-American, and I don’t take as much of my culinary influence from them.

My mother’s older sister, Anne, came to visit me a few weeks ago, and we spent a lot of time talking and trading recipes: she’s famous in our family for her Christmas cookies, which she makes from old family recipes that she’s kept forever (thank you thank you thank you!!!), but she’s also an accomplished cook, something that I haven’t really been able to experience first-hand too often.

A lot of our family recipes from that side of the family got lost when my grandfather’s aunt, Lily, threw them out when her oven stopped working. Most of us would just call the building’s super to have it fixed, but she never even considered this: there was a fear in that generation of new immigrants from Germany; if they didn’t start trouble, their risk of being considered a nuisance or, even worse, deported, was less. It’s sad to think that that sort of thing entered into their consciousness on a daily basis, but it did.

Luckily, certain recipes survive just through repetition. This is not my family’s recipe for schnitzel: my aunt makes Wiener schnitzel for my grandfather whenever she visits for the weekend, and I have yet to acquire that recipe. This Jaeger schnitzel (made with pork instead of veal) is much less expensive and just as delicious.

As you can see, I still have some work to do when it comes to making spaetzle, but you can also serve this with cucumber salad and red cabbage, which is the way we eat it at home anyway. Some things are better left untouched and traditional.

Jaegerschnitzel (adapted from Culinography)
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
salt and pepper
1/4 to 1/2 cup extra crunchy breadcrumbs
1 egg
1 Tbsp. milk
2 pork chops
1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil

lemon juice, for serving
Mix flour, salt and pepper in one bowl, and pour the breadcrumbs into another. In third bowl, whisk egg and add milk. Set all three aside.

Trim pork and place in a plastic bag. Pound until flat and even. Dredge each piece in flour, then dip in egg, then in breadcrumbs. Heat oil in a skillet over medium-high heat and, when hot, add pork. Reduce heat slightly and allow to cook for 3-4 minutes until golden on one side. Flip and cook for an additional 2-3 minutes until golden and cooked through.

Serve with wedges of lemon.