It's all in the game

This blog will be in the main about hunting, fishing, the preparation and cooking of it. BUT not only. I have in the last couple of months become interested in bread baking, so every now and again it will contain what I have been doing in this direction. It will also contain my travels far and near, with and without food (though in the main I don't do hungry).It will also be about the wonderful countryside in which I live and the animals and birds that are part of it and my life.

Showing posts with label traditional German. Show all posts

Jägerschnitzel with Spätzel

Jägerschnitzel or hunters schnitzel

I had to pop into my Doctor as I needed a new prescription, on the way I passed a butcher that I often use and in the window she had some nice Schnitzel Fleisch (Schnitzel meat is just not any old piece of pork it comes from the hind leg or in German the Schinken. It can contain two types of muscles but it should always be cut across the muscle fibre (across the grain). I have known Elke the master butcher for many years (and many drinks together) and she doesn’t sell any rubbish (though she does drink some).

So that was how I came to be making Jägerschnitzel, oh by the way, Wienerschnitzel is always and I mean always made out of Veal, just as Berlinerschnitzel is always made out of Udder, I bet that made you shudder.

I suppose the correct terminology for what I was making should be Schweineschnitzel mit Jägersoße

Ingredients for 4 people (1 each, now don’t be greedy and eat 2)

4 pieces of pork meat cut from the leg (about 125g each)

2 eggs

Enough flour to cover a dinner plate

Salt

Pepper

1 tsp. dried thyme

1 tsp. dried marjoram

1 tsp. dried oregano

Dried lightly toasted bread crumbs (Paniermehl, in Germany this is ready made and to be had in every butchers and bakers)

Oil for frying (purists will use butter, but I am on a health kick at the moment)

For the Jäger sauce

4 or 5 large mushrooms (better if you can get some wild ones)

1 clove of garlic

4 shallots

50g of speck (or smoked streaky bacon diced)

200ml of vegetable stock

Dash of soya sauce

Dash of sherry

Dash of Anchovy sauce (or a mashed up anchovy filet)

Dash of mushroom ketchup (German readers don't worry, use some dried steinpilz powder)

Juice of half a lemon

Table spoon of cream (or a vegetable substitute, Rama crème)

Freshly ground pepper

Leaves picked from a couple of sprigs of fresh marjoram and oregano

Method:

Mix your savoury flour (flour, salt pepper, dried marjoram, thyme and oregano) place this on one plate.

Beat the 2 eggs in a deep plate (have you ever tried beating them on a flat one???)

Spread a deep layer of bread crumbs on another plate

In the meantime put a 4^th one in a heated oven (boy is this a load of washing up for later)

Lay the schnitzels out on a board and bash it with a cleaver or one of those fancy mallets, they even make a special tool for doing it, but me being a poor pauper, just use the side of my heaviest knife (wonder if it tastes different using a special tool?) Actually don’t bash it too hard, just enough to get them a uniform thickness of about 3-4mm.

Heat a good 2mm of oil in a heavy bottomed frying pan (I have a cast iron skillet which is ideal for this, Ikea if you must know)

Dredge the schnitzel through the savoury flour patting to remove any excess, then through the egg, then through the bread crumbs, repeat the egg and bread crumbs again, this gives it a wonderful thick coating (I find it better to pour some crumbs over the top, patting it in and shaking off any excess.

Pop into the oil, not too hot, you don’t want them to be burnt on the outside and raw on the inside, when the one side is fried to a golden brown, turn (only turn it the once, there is much less chance of the coating coming loose) and cook the other side until also nice and golden. Transfer to the plate in the oven and continue doing the others, I normally do one side and then add another schnitzel to the pan, this way you can control the cooking much better and it is a bit like a conveyor belt.

While you are frying your schnitzels, you can also be making your sauce (and boiling your potatoes or frying your chips or as in this case boiling your Spätzle).

Slowly fry the onions and garlic until translucent, add the sliced mushrooms and speck, fry until the mushrooms are soft, add the stock , bubble up, add the rest of the ingredients, be careful with the anchovy sauce, you will only need a dash or it will be too salty and fishy. Adding the fresh herbs right at the end, along with the lemon juice.

Add the fresh herbs and finish off with the juice of half a lemon.

Plate up, a pile of Spätzlen and a schnitzel, pour the sauce over and enjoy it, nothing hard or gourmet, but good rustically prepared German Grub! (This can also be served with tinned peas and carrots, or chips a la Schnell Imbiß)

Möhnestausee and a Sunday BBQ

Saturday and I had a few different things to do in the morning, like buying a bike, I have decided I need a bit more exercise and biking is a good way of getting it, my aim is to bike to and from work during the week, this will be very pleasant as it is 90% through countryside and I shall be able to vary my route to take in some of my favourite spots along the way.

We also needed some spray for Linda’s balcony plants so needed a garden centre, we have about 6 to choose from in the town.

Next was to media markt the electronic giant in Germany, I have my Navigon in as she has lost her voice (not a bad thing, but I have been flashed for speeding about 3 times this year and she gives me a warning, women where are they when you need them???)but it isn’t fixed yet, but more about that later!

I hadn’t told Linda, but I had planned a little surprise as it was such a nice day, I had planned a trip to The Möhnesee. I hadn’t been there for quite a few years, it is a really beautiful setting, lying just South of Soast (they have a nice Christmas Market here for those of interest) in the Möhne valley, This was of course the scene of one of the famous (or infamous depending on which side one sits) Dam Buster raids in which 622 Squadron with Guy Gibson as its Squadron Leader, breached the Dam using Barns Wallace’s famous bouncing bomb.

We drove to the Dam (Staumauer) and parked up in the large car park just below the dam wall (is that wise??)

It wasn’t really all that busy considering it was a Saturday, nice weather, the start of the school holidays and also the Schutzenfest in Delecke (the little town right on the lake a favorit motorbikers meeting place ).

We took some photographs and walked along the top of the dam,

stopping to take a few photographs, couples in love come here to attach padlocks to the grills on the old flack watch towers that have been put there to stop those that are no longer in love from throwing themselves over the dam wall.

A view of the lake from a watch tower opening with no grill, from this side you won't drop to your death but drop into cold lake water so may catch your death of cold.

There is a lake sightseeing steamer (well it would have been in days gone by, it is now a diesel), that plies its trade up and down the lake and you can get on and off at various stops.

Right in front of the dam are marker buoys and if the lads of 622 sqadron had heeded the warning a lot of people in the Ruhr wouldn’t have got wet feet. (the wording on the buoy roughly translated is "stop - passing this point is prohibited")

It did start to rain , but it was short lived, I then suggested to Linda that we go for a spot of Lunch, but first I wanted to check out the dam wall from below and have a look at the turbine from close up.

I had earlier been chatting on line with a friend (Carol) both she and her husband where stationed in Germany with the Royal Signals for many years and Bill her Husband was a keen sailor and he sailed at the British Yatch Club at the Möhnesee. She said that Bill reckoned the best Jägerschnitzel anywhere in the world was to be had at “The Shack”, I decided to find this shack, we passed the position of where BYC had been it is now the Möhnesee Yatch Club Eg.V (a private club Eingetragener Verein). So we followed the shore road, and we came across a nice restaurant called the Leuchtturm now why ever there isn't a lighthouse in sight???? But never mind we decided to pop in and low and behold would you believe it? they had Jägerschnitzel on the menu (well, in all reality it wasn’t all that low and beholding as 90% of all restaurants in Germany will have Jäger or otherwise named Schnitzel on their menus)

Linda being an adventuress type of Belfast lass that she is went to the fish and chips (well Backfish and wedges).

But it was very tasty and not at all expensive €20,- for the pair of us including drinks (only sparkling mineral water as I was driving).

We then crossed the lake via a bridge that takes you to the Southern shore road and followed this, it is a nice drive, as it passes through cool wooded areas and sleepy lakeside villages. There is a large YHA (Jugendherberge) situated right on the lakeside for those wishing to have a water/walking holiday.

We then turned back towards Soast and home, there is a nice straight Bundes Strasse that heads towards Bechum, straight as a die and then it happened, and it is all her fault, if she hadn’t lost her voice she would have warned me!!!! FLASH!!! Yes that will be another €30,- speeding fine!

We got back to Rheda-Wiedenbrück, popped into a Supermarket to get a few bits as we had bought ready marinated meat for the BBQ that Linda fancied (I did as well), but we were still full from lunch so the BBQ is delayed until Sunday lunch and we had the remains of the Jerked Chicken and Bulgar wheat from last night’s supper along with a bottle of pink plonk.

Sunday was a lazy day (well it was for some) though I was up and out into the Schloßpark to see the wild life before 08:00.