PENGUIN BUFFET'S CLASSIC ISRAELI SCHNITZEL
_**Editor's note:** The recipe and introductory text below are excerpted from Joan Nathan's book [](http://www.ecookbooks.com/products.html?affiliateID=16283&item=01347)_[The Foods of Israel Today](http://www.ecookbooks.com/products.html?affiliateID=16283&item=01347). _Nathan also shared some helpful cooking tips exclusively with Epicurious, which we've added at the bottom of the page. Almost every restaurant in Israel features turkey schnitzel on the menu. Most homemakers buy it breaded and frozen and serve it preceded by hummus, tahina, and other salads for a quick main meal. As I went from table to table throughout Israel, I found the dish to be more or less the same, prepared with spice combinations that vary depending on the ethnic background of the cook. Yemenite Jews, for example, add garlic, cumin, turmeric, cardamom, and _hawayij._ Polish cooks often use matzoh meal. A classic schnitzel includes both butter and oil, which has been changed to just oil in Israel. Even in remote corners of Latin America, restaurants try to woo Israeli travelers by putting up signs in Hebrew saying WE HAVE SCHNITZEL._
Provided by Joan Nathan
Yield Yield: 6 servings
Number Of Ingredients 7
Steps:
- 1. Place one cutlet at a time inside a large plastic bag. With a meat mallet, pound the turkey or chicken slice as thin as possible and season well with salt and pepper.
- 2. Spread the flour on a flat plate. Break the eggs into a pie plate and beat well. Put the bread crumbs on a third plate.
- 3. Pour the oil into a heavy skillet to a depth of 1 inch and heat over a medium flame until almost smoking.
- 4. Dip each turkey or chicken breast in flour, then in egg, and then in bread crumbs.
- 5. Fry the schnitzels for 2 to 3 minutes on each side, until golden brown.
- 6. Drain the schnitzels on a plate lined with paper towel. Serve immediately with lemon wedges.
- NOTE: You can also bake the breaded schnitzels in a 350-degree oven for a few minutes ahead of time. Then, just before serving, deep-fry quickly to crisp the outside.
- • This dish, a variation on veal schnitzel from Central Europe, is a classic example of the transformations common in Israeli cooking. Before Israel's swamps were drained in the 1950s to irrigate the desert, there was not enough grassland to pasture cows. Thus the first Central European Jewish settlers adapted one of their native dishes to use turkey meat, more easily raised in desert conditions. Subsequent immigrants have added twists from their own backgrounds, such as Yemeni Jews adding the Middle Eastern spice blend hawayij.
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