Jägerschnitzel

Jägerschnitzel, aka Hunter’s cutlet, is another one of those classic German dishes I love. While I could (and have) eaten Wiener Schnitzel everyday, I also love Jägerschnitzel. It’s essentially a pork chop in a cream sauce of mushrooms and onions. Of course, I wanted to try making it at home but the one part that concerned me was the sauce.

I’ve seen envelopes at the grocery store of, essentially, instant Jägerschnitzel sauce where you just add milk or water and mushrooms. We tried one once and I didn’t care for it much. I’d like to try the other brands available but I figured I’d have a go at making it from scratch. For this “experiment,” I decided to go with good old Dr. Oetker. What’s the use of learning German if I don’t use it to translate recipes? 🙂

The only problem? I couldn’t find crème fraîche at my local supermarket. I did, however, find a crème fraîche substitute online (a separate post is forthcoming on that).

The recipe itself isn’t overly difficult. I expected the sauce to be a lot more involved but it was straightforward.

The result? Not bad! Not bad at all. It turned out really nicely. You can play with the salt and pepper to give it a little more flavor as the sauce is somewhat flat on its own. In addition a whole onion is a bit much. I’d say maybe about a half of a cup of chopped onion. But what’s great about this dish is that it seems like it would take a while to cook but it doesn’t. Measure everything out ahead of time and you’ll fly right through the recipe. I used thin sliced boneless pork chops and that reduced cook time even further.

Now, if only I had some spezi and Spätzle…

Jägerschnitzel
from Dr. Oetker
serves 4

Ingredients:

• 1 onion
• 250g mushrooms
• about 800g pork chops (4 pieces)
• salt
• fresh ground pepper
• paprika
• 40g flour
• 50g margarine or 5 tablespoons of oil
• 150g Crème fraîche
• 1 tbsp chopped parsley

1. Peel and dice the onion. Clean and slice the mushrooms. Dab the pork chops dry with a paper towel and season with salt, pepper and paprika. Dip the pork chops in the flour. Do not knock off any loose flour.
2. Heat the margarine or oil in a pan. The pork chops should cook for about 10 to 12 minutes (will be longer for thicker pork chops) on both sides. Take the pork chops out of the pan and keep warm.
3. Place the diced onions in the left over fat from frying the pork chops and lightly braise. Add the mushrooms to the diced onions and braise. Stir in the crème fraîche with salt and pepper, without a lid, for 2 to 3 minutes over low heat and let simmer. Add the parsley. Serve with the sauce over the pork chops.