"chicken schnitzel" news and stories

What's your first thought when you hear "Vienna?" Freud? Mozart? If you belted out "schnitzel" before either the superego or "Don Giovanni" came to mind, you've come to the right place. And we're here to tell you that the classic Austrian dish doesn't have to be made according to the traditional Wiener schnitzel formula of veal plus breading plus a whole lot of butter for frying.

A couple of schnitzel-loving cooks offer alternatives using chicken. In Melissa Clark's recipe for the New York Times (shown here in a photo by Andrew Scrivani), the chicken cutlets are pounded to a thickness of one-eighth inch before she coats them in herbed breadcrumbs and fries them in olive oil, for a moist, crisp dish. "Skinny Chef" Jennifer Iserloh offers up a healthy recipe using whole-wheat breadcrumbs, fewer whole eggs, and more egg whites, along with less oil for frying. And if you need to put more Vienna in your schnitzel, just crank up the "Così fan tutte" during dinner. You won't be disappointed.

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Photo: Jennifer Iserloh.

I'm not sure how this myth got started -- I used to believe it too, before I met my husband, who grew up in Germany. Every time I tell someone I'm making schnitzel for dinner, they talk about hot dog buns and sauerkraut. Then they try to convince me that I really meant sausage and they will go as far as to ambush random passersby to help corroborate their story.

In truth, the word schnitzel comes from the German term "schneiden" which means to cut, so schnitzel means cutlet. Thus, Wiener Schnitzel is not a cut-up hot dog, but rather a "cutlet from Vienna or Wien." See how I make it after the jump.