House Recipes: Veal Schnitzel with potato and cucumber salad

If any dish exemplifies German cooking, it’s the schnitzel. And no wonder. The combination of a perfectly seasoned and tenderised cut of meat, coated in breadcrumbs and fried until crispy and golden offers the ideal combination of comfort and indulgence. Add a zingy potato salad on the side and you have a delicious dish for spring.

Schnitzel comes in many forms, from chicken to pork – and even turkey – but the House favourite, as served up at Soho House Berlin, is Wiener Schnitzel. High-welfare veal is easy to source from good butchers and supermarkets, so we recommend you use it if possible.

Follow our simple recipe below or make an elevated version, called the Schnitzel Holstein, by adding a fried egg, anchovies, capers, and a wedge of lemon. 

Tip: Any type of potato suitable for boiling works for the salad, but as a springtime dish new potatoes bring that little bit of extra bite and freshness (you can leave the skins on if you like).

 

Ingredients
Serves four

Veal Schnitzel 
500g high-welfare veal 
4 eggs
300g flour
500g panko breadcrumbs
Butter for frying
Sea salt and pepper

Potato and cucumber salad
500g waxy potatoes (e.g. new potatoes)
500ml rich vegetable stock
1 tbsp Dijon mustard
30g fresh dill, chopped
30g fresh tarragon, chopped
100g cucumber, thinly sliced
100g pickles, thinly sliced
70g radish, thinly sliced

Method
1. Peel the potatoes or scrub them clean if boiling with skins on. 
2. Cut them into chunks or slices, then boil in the vegetable stock until they are soft but not falling apart. Leave to cool for one hour. Once cool, mix with the rest of the ingredients and season to taste.
3. For the schnitzel, cut the meat into four equal slices and flatten with a meat hammer to a thickness of 3mm.
4. Whisk the eggs together and pour into a shallow bowl. Place the flour and breadcrumbs in similar vessels, then coat each slice in the following order: flour, egg, breadcrumbs.
5. Heat the butter in a shallow frying pan or casserole dish (the schnitzel needs to float in the butter, so judge the amount you use according to that).
6. Pan fry on a medium heat until golden. 
7. Garnish each schnitzel with sea salt flakes, then serve piping hot with room-temperature potato and cucumber salad.