Schnitzel and Spaetzle, and Braised Red Cabbage

(The stuff that looks like scrambled eggs is really the spaetzle, it just looks yellow in the camera for some reason. They are just German dumpling noodles. We found them at the grocery store.)

It's my husband's birthday today, and I decided to try to make it a German night since he loves German food.  Hubby took German as his foreign language in high school and spent 2 weeks in Germany during his Junior year of high school.  He is always reminiscing about the tasty food in Germany and how he loves schnitzel and noodles (spaetzle) most of all.

We generally enjoy bratwurst and have that around here pretty often, but for tonight I wanted to try and make schnitzel because he has talked so much about it.  I found a package of the noodles at our local grocery store, so those were nothing fancy.  I had tried to find a homemade recipe for them, but the only one I found made enough for 15 servings, which is a bit much for the 2 of us to eat.  I figured this way I could also focus more on the schnitzel and do a better job with it, and the cabbage.  So here are the recipes for the schnitzel and cabbage, both of which were much more simple than I expected.

You'll want to do the cabbage first, and then about half an hour before you want to eat boil the water for the noodles, and start cooking the schnitzel. I prepped the schnitzel about an hour before needed and just put them in the fridge for when I was ready to cook them.

Schnitzel

5-6 boneless pork cutlets, pounded to about 1/4 inch thin
3/4 c all purpose flour
2 eggs
4 tbsp parmesan cheese
1 tbsp finely chopped parsley
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper
pinch of nutmeg
4 tbsp milk
1 1/2 c plain breadcrumbs
1 stick of butter
sliced lemon, optional

I was able to get my pork pounded thin by our local grocery store meat guy.  But if you can't get it already done that way, just take a meat mallet and pound it out thin so its about 1/4 inch thick. Once they are pounded thin, dredge them in the flour, and make sure to dust off any excess flour.

Beat together eggs, cheese, milk, parsley, salt, pepper, and nutmeg.  Dip the flour dredged pork into the egg mixture first, then coat with the breadcrumbs.  Repeat for each piece of pork, and place on a plate or cookie sheet, and then place in the fridge.

About 20-30 minutes before you are ready to eat, boil water for noodles, and melt the butter in a skillet.  Fry each schnitzel cutlet in the butter, about 3 minutes per side, or til golden on both sides.   Add the noodles to the boiling water and cook about 20-25 minutes (if using spaetzle--you can also use plain egg noodles, but they only take about 5 minutes to cook)

Make a pan gravy by whisking flour into the pan drippings and then adding about 1/2 c milk and some water.  I added a bit of nutmeg as well as a splash of apple cider vinegar too, but that's just a personal taste.

German Braised Red Cabbage

1 head red cabbage, finely sliced/shredded
2 tbsp butter
2 green apples, thinly sliced
1/4 c sugar
1/3 c apple cider vinegar
3 tbsp water
1 1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper
1/4 tsp ground cloves

Mix together shredded cabbage and apples.  Add butter, sugar, apple cider vinegar, water, salt, pepper, and cloves.  Bring to a boil on the stove, then reduce heat and simmer about an hour and a half.  (this is why you need to start this one first, even though it is simple, it takes the longest.)

This one was pretty good, and I am not much of a cabbage fan.  Try it out, but be prepared, it makes a whole lot, so you might want to half the recipe if you aren't feeding a big family.

TO SERVE:

Put spaetzle on the plate, and the schnitzel on top of the noodles, then put a big helping of cabbage next to the schnitzel and spaetzle.   Pour gravy all over the schnitzel and noodles and enjoy!