No. 1513

Schnitzel, Vienna Style

Schnitzel a la Viennoise

Select some good tenderloins of veal; suppress the nervous parts and then cut them into slightly bias slices; beat this with the blade of a cleaver, and chop lightly with the back of the blade of a knife; pare and season with salt and pepper, roll them in flour, and dip each piece separately in beaten eggs, roll in bread-crumbs, saute and cook them in clarified butter, then dress them in a circle on a hot dish. Serve separately a tomato sauce (No. 549) or thickened gravy (No. 405)

← No. 1512 Schnitzel, German Style Veal No. 1514 Fillet of Veal Sliced with Pelerine Potatoes →

For the Modern Kitchen

A three-stage breading on pounded veal, cooked in clarified butter. The whole dish turns on the thickness of the meat and the depth of the fat.

"Suppress the nervous parts"This means trim away the silverskin, sinew and any membrane before pounding. Sinew left in place contracts in the pan and curls the cutlet into a bowl.
The cutRanhofer's "tenderloins of veal" most likely means the filet, though the term is used loosely in the book; either way it is cut on a slight bias into scallops. Veal top round or leg cut across the grain works the same way and is easier to buy; ask for cutlets and pound them yourself rather than buying them pre-flattened.
Pounding, and the light choppingBeat with the flat of a cleaver between plastic wrap; the recipe gives no thickness, but an even 1/8 to 1/4 inch suits the method. The "chop lightly with the back of the blade" does not cut through -- the back is blunt -- it bruises and breaks the remaining fibre so the cutlet stays flat. Work outward from the centre.
Clarified butter, and enough of itWhole butter burns at this heat; clarified butter takes 350-375F comfortably. Use enough that it comes a good way up the cutlet, and swirl the pan as it cooks. That is what lifts the crumb crust away from the meat in blisters, which is the mark of the dish.
TimingAt the thickness given, 1 to 2 minutes per side is the whole of it. Veal this thin is dry and stringy at five minutes. The original gives no time at all; judge by the colour of the crumbs.
Breading disciplineFlour, then beaten egg, then crumbs, shaking off the excess at each stage. Do not press the crumbs on and do not let the breaded cutlets sit and sweat; go straight to the pan. Fine dry crumbs, not panko, for the period texture.
The saucesNo. 549 is a tomato sauce and No. 405 a thickened gravy; both are separate entries elsewhere in the book. Modern Viennese practice serves the schnitzel dry with lemon and lets the crust stay crisp, and a sauce on the side rather than over it is the compromise Ranhofer already makes.
YieldThe recipe gives no quantities; two cutlets of about 4 oz each per person is a workable modern portion, dressed overlapping in a ring on a warmed platter as Ranhofer directs. Cook in batches and hold uncovered in a 200F oven; a lid steams the crust flat.

A Little History

The Epicurean (1894) is Charles Ranhofer's record of thirty-odd years as chef at Delmonico's in New York, and its veal chapter reads like a survey of European capitals for an American clientele — the German-style schnitzel sits at No. 1512, the Viennese at No. 1513. Schnitzel is simply German for a cutlet or slice; the breaded Viennese version was already a fixed point of restaurant cookery across Europe by Ranhofer's day, and the story tracing it to a breaded Milanese cutlet brought north by Field Marshal Radetzky in the 1850s is traditional rather than documented, and generally doubted by food historians. Ranhofer calls for veal, as Austrian labelling practice later would: there the name Wiener Schnitzel is reserved for veal, and pork versions must be labelled otherwise. His side dish of tomato sauce or thickened gravy is the New York dining room speaking rather than Vienna, where the plate arrives with a lemon wedge and nothing more.