January 25, 2013

You Want Schnitzels? Go Pound Yourself.


My husband is a very easy man to please – gastronomically, anyway. He loves every meat, as long as it’s schnitzel, and every vegetable on earth, if it’s potato, and fried. And even though I hate cooking at the best of time, and schnitzels are the messiest, splatteriest, most annoying things to make, my greatest joy is pleasing my husband*. 

So every now and then, I will buy a mountain of chicken, and a huge pile of veal, and fry up enough schnitzels to last the year. Or at least feed my husband for a week or two.

Last night was one of those nights. I prepped the kitchen, pouring a mound of flour on one plate, a mound of breadcrumbs on another, and a bowl of whisked eggs in the middle. Then I added my secret ingredient , love (using ‘love’ in the sense of ‘combination of herbs, spices and salt’), and began pounding the meat.
Totally (not) my schnitzel
Now, let me tell you: I don’t like pounding the meat. Bits of chicken spray gets into my hair, and tiny shreds of veal get up my nose, and the whole thing is sickly carnivorous and gross. And then my five year old needed a bath, and my husband took ages to come and get her, and it was totally unfair because I was cooking him bloody schnitzels and the very least he could do was take one third of our joint offspring off my hands.

So I kept on pounding the meat, hard. Like, really hard. I wasn’t just pounding that meat. I was pounding my husband, and the bits of chicken spray in my hair, and the veal in my nose, and the whole unfairness of my life, of having to spend hours messing up my kitchen only to spend hours cleaning it up again when everyone around me just hung about taking it easy. I pounded and pounded until the kids became alarmed and my husband appeared before me.

“What are you doing?” he asked warily, looking as anxious as if I was wielding a mallet in my hands, which, of course, I was.

“I’m making you schnitzels,” I yelled.  “And you’ve forgotten about the bath!”

“I just ran it,” he said carefully. “Um... I think the chicken is ready.”

I looked down. The piece of chicken was in tatters. There would be no schnitzel for this particular bit of bird. There wasn’t even enough left for a nugget.

Chastened, I continued to prepare the rest of the meat. I dunked and I dipped and I rolled and I fried, and then I presented my family with a nutritious meal (using ‘nutritious’ in the sense of ‘containing trace amounts of protein amongst lots and lots of oil’). And then I sat down at the table with my own nutritious meal of Gin and Tonic and a slice of cheese (because I never wanted to look at schnitzel again), before rising seven minutes later to start cleaning.

It took one and a half hours. And another glass of gin.

My husband can be a very easy man to please. But next time he wants pleasure in the kitchen, he’s going to have to bite the bullet, and damn well please himself.

*Okay, so it’s maybe not my greatest joy, but it’s certainly up there in my top fifty.

24 comments:

  1. I take great joy in pounding my husband's meat. x

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  2. Would this be a good or bad time to mention that if you ask nicely the butcher will do it for you? (ducking for cover as I know you own a mallet)

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  3. I'm a modern liberated man...I buy my schnitzel from my local deli...I'm not ashamed to pay to have my meat pounded...

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  4. At least they ate your schnitzel. I've done the whole pounding the chicken, crumbing it thing, right down to making my own fresh bread crumbs. Then served it and my boys have tasted it and gone "Ewwww..I don't like it!" and then left the rest. Grrrrr. Then again, maybe they were too scared not to eat it, unless you went after them with that mallet..

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  5. Glad wrap or baking paper between the mallet and your husband's meat.

    *backs away slowly*

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  6. Tip # 1 don't pound the chicken to death, it's already dead.
    Tip # 2 wear a shower cap if you continue to pound hard enough to splatter the meat.

    Tip # 3 don't use plates for your flour, egg and crumbs, use deep sided square or rectangular baking dishes such as roasting pans or biscuit slice pans, something that has enough side height to contain the ingredients.
    Tip # 4 place the dishes with your flour, egg, crumbs side by side and touching, with the platter for the finished schnitzels butted right up against the crumbs tray. This minimises spillage from one to the other. So, left to right, pounded meat, flour, egg, crumbs, finished schnitzels. All butted up nice and tight.

    Tip #5 use the left hand for flour and egg, and keep the right hand free and clean for brushing and patting crumbs onto the chicken pieces.

    Tip #6 have hot soapy water already in the sink to be able to drop in utensils and wash off your hands without getting mess on your taps.
    Tip #7 teach hubby and the kids how to make them, so you don't have to.

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  7. I have one of those husbands who only like 'bland'. Fortunately I have turned him onto his ideal gourmet meal of Maccas so I get out of the preparation.

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  8. And I'm quite sure he just LOVES having you pound it... x

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  9. But... but... why would he do that? Is he angry?

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  10. I freeze them too, but cooked. Because I cannot stand the oil splatter, so I can only do it once in a blue moon #orneveragain

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  11. I think it's very sad you have to pay...

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  12. LOL. I really, REALLY like the sound of your husband.

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  13. Kerri, my sweet, put down that heavy mallet, and go stock up immediately on pre-made schnitzels (not the gross mass produced ones but the nice ones - some supermarkets have nice ones). In the oven for 20 mins, voila - clean hair, happy husband :)

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  14. My wife doesn't understand my schnitzel needs :(

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  15. I'm with River's comments especially tip number 7. Lenard's and our local butcher do great schnitzels. Go buy some, remove the packaging and wrap in baking paper then freeze. See if he notices the difference. xx Rae

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  16. It's the vegetarians...

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  17. Go vegetarian - you never have to pound tofu schnitzels ;)

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  18. dear kerri ... wrap meat in layer of glad wrap before pounding. that's chicken meat, dirty minds.

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  19. I always go for veal schnitzel. I'm too rough for chicken. As you have found out. (Lol, for the top 50. Would like to see that list as a blog post!).

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  20. I've tried them, I have, but they're not the same!

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