Tuesday, August 31, 2010

Now on to Switzerland!

Every time we go to European Cuisine (not it's real name)---the place of my infamous depantsing---I order the same thing. Zurich-style veal. Yumm.

After another trip to the restaurant recently, we realized that the 3-hour wait for your meal is de rigueur, because the darn place was practically empty.


I guess they round up the baby cows and kill them on the back porch while we're waiting for the sommelier to stomp on some grapes. The chairs are danged hard too, and designed to give you the unbearable urge to cut the cheese (kind of like pews in church). While waiting for our meal, I had to excuse myself twice to go outside and release the barking spiders. But that's another story. ;-)

I really love this dish, but can't bear the wait, so I decided to try to make it on my own. I looked around on the web, found several recipes, and kind of combined them to make a recipe as close to what I had as possible.

I'm assuming it comes Switzerland or some other spaetzly-eating country because of the name.

Here it is:

1 pound veal (I used scallopinied veal because that's all I could order in our podunk town).
You could also use chicken breasts or thin-sliced pork steaks if you're opposed to the baby cow thing.
1 onion diced
1 lbs sliced mushrooms
flour for dredging
butter (since this recipe calls for a lot of butter, I used Smart Balance 50/50 blend)
2 tbs flour for sauce
2 tbs corn starch
salt
pepper
white pepper
thyme
2 cups sauvignon blanc (or some other white wine)
2 cups half and half

Salt and pepper the dredging flour to taste. Dip the veal in the mixture and saute in butter. This won't take long if the cut is scallopini. Remove from pan and keep warm in the oven.

Saute the onions and mushrooms. When cooked through, sprinkle with the two tablespoons of flour. Stir briskly until absorbed. Pour in the two cups of wine, pinch of thyme, a little salt and a little white pepper. Bring to a boil while continuously stirring until it cooks down, making a brownish-gravy. Turn the heat down to low/medium.

Stir the cornstarch into the half and half until it dissolves, then pour the whole thing into the pan. Turn the heat back to medium and mix well. Let it simmer until it thickens. Taste it to make sure the cornstarch is cooked through. If it's chalkyish---you need to let it cook a bit longer. If the sauce is too thick for your taste, add a little whole milk or water to thin it out.

I wanted to make spaetzle, but it looked like a lot of work. LOL So I cheated.

Since the ingredients looked pretty much the same, I used a bag of fresh-frozen egg noodles. I boiled them per directions, then cut them up into bite-sized pieces.

Then I sauteed them in butter, nutmeg, salt and white pepper until slightly browned on the outside.

Serve with sauce on the meat, the spaetzley stuff on the side.

This is a very rich dish, and needs a salad and veggies to balance it out. I'd skip the bread course. ;-)

6 comments:

Chris H said...

You actually waited a whole 3 hours! Far out, there is no way I'd wait that long for any meal, no matter how yummy it was! I might try the recipe .... it sounds nice.

Jennifer Leeland said...

Great idea!!! I really need to learn to cook those things I love to eat at restaurants.

Joanna Jenkins said...

Three hours! That must be one seriously good piece of veal cuz I'd have jumped out the window after two hours ;-)

Your version looks great. The noodles sounds fab too. i'll add this is my recipe book. Thanks.
jj

stinkypaw said...

You're WAY more patient than me, I would have left before - three hours with no clients in the place is just plain bad service! That meal better worth it! Yikes!

Anonymous said...

I bet this dish is rich.
Three hours? I'd have left.

Anonymous said...

Hmm, next time you should ring through the order and then ask them to ring you when it's ready