Who doesn’t love chicken fried steak with mashed potatoes and gravy? It’s an American classic served at greasy spoons and upscale brunch hot spots everywhere. Every region of the world has their own version, essentially a battered and fried hunk of meat. The words “battered”, “fried ” and “hunk of meat” just go together so well!
When I made this dish, I really didn’t have the end result in mind. Pork chops for the most part are a fairly inexpensive cut of meat, so when they go on sale, they’re super cheap. I snagged them without knowing what I’d do. I’m flipping through the channels that night and I see a plate of chicken fried steak with mashed potatoes and gravy on a “Diners, Drive-ins and Dives” episode. I go to my fridge, inspect what I have available, and the outcome became something that’s going on rotation in my kitchen.
I like mashed potatoes, but they’re also somewhat heavy, especially when paired with a breaded pork chop and a thick rich gravy. I try to opt for imposters when cooking if it won’t sacrifice the dish. They’re often more flavorful and allow me to eat more of the main attraction without becoming full as quickly. They’re also a great way to hide a vegetable if you can’t convince someone to eat them! Imposters have actually overtaken the real-deal on many occasions in my house, case-in-point with cauliflower or parsnip puree in place of mashed potatoes. With this dish I go with cauliflower since it’s what I had in the fridge.
We also love picking fresh vegetables from our local U-Pick farm and the cauliflower was great and in-season. If you don’t currently visit your local farms or farmers markets to get your produce, I would highly recommend it. We love teaching our son about where his food comes from, it’s so fresh, and it’s a ton of fun! Support your local farmers!
Hollandaise is an easy sauce to make, basically eggs and hot butter whipped until emulsified. The blender is your best friend here and an easy way to cheat at making hollandaise which is typically a little laborious using a double boiler method. Poblanos have become one my favorite peppers. They get a little sweet when roasted, they’re fairly mild and great to stuff. In this recipe, I added them to the hollandaise for additional flavor, and to make myself feel better about including a “green vegetable”. After making this hollandaise sauce, I’m not sure I can go back to the traditional version. How boring right?
This is the chicken fried steak with mashed potatoes and gravy remix. Mic drop.
Pork Schnitzel with Cauliflower Puree and Poblano Hollandaise
Ingredients
Pork Schnitzel
- 4 boneless pork chops 1 inch or less in thickness, will pound to 1/4 inch or less
- 2 eggs beaten
- 1 cup panko breadcrumbs
- 1 cup all-purpose flour
- 2 tbsp za'atar
- 1 zest of 1 lemon
- 1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil plus more if needed
- 2 tbsp butter
- 1 tsp salt plus more to dust pork chop prior to flour dredge
- 1 tsp ground black pepper plus more to dust pork chop prior to flour dredge
Cauliflower Puree
- 1 head of cauliflower, medium to large size cut into small 2 inch florets
- 1 cup heavy cream
- 6 tbsp butter
- 1 tsp salt
- 1 tsp ground black pepper
- 1/2 tsp cayenne
- 1/2 tsp nutmeg
Poblano Hollandaise
- 3 egg yolks
- 1 tbsp lemon juice
- 1 tsp dijon mustard
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 8 tbsp melted butter
- 1 poblano roasted, peeled and seeded – then diced
Instructions
For Pork Schnitzel
- Prepare 3 shallow bowls. To the first bowl, add the flour. To the second bowl, added the beaten eggs. To the third bowl, add the breadcrumbs, along with 1 tsp of salt, 1 tsp of ground black pepper, the za’atar and the lemon zest.
- To ensure they cook evenly and to avoid an outlier of an undercooked pork chop, place the pork chops between two sheets of plastic wrap and pound them until they're about ¼ inch thick using the flat side of a meat mallet. Season them generously with salt & pepper.
- Add ¼ cup of olive oil and the 1 tbsp of butter to a cast iron pan, or other large skillet. The pan should be well-coated, so add more oil if needed .Let the pan heat up for a few minutes over medium-high heat. You will most likely be doing two batches, so for the second batch add at least one more tablespoon of olive oil to the pan and the remaining tablespoon of butter.
- Coat the pork chops in flour, followed by the egg (let excess drip off), and finally the panko breadcrumbs. Make sure you coat it well and don’t be afraid to press the breadcrumbs into the pork chop to ensure it get’s coated all over.
- Fry two schnitzels at a time for about 3 minutes per side. Try hard to only flip once as excessive flipping can result in loss of quality coating, and no one wants a shitty coated schnitzel. I would also recommend using an easy read food thermometer to ensure the pork is cooked properly, and until you reach an internal temperature of 145 degrees. I like my pork around 140,and anything higher than 150 will result in a tough piece of meat. 145 is a safe zone if you’re overly concerned, plus you’ll get a little carry over.
- Remove schnitzels and place on either a rack to remove excess oil or on top of some paper towel or a brown bag and cover with foil until serving. As a recommendation, I would serve immediately as re-heating the schnitzel can dry it out and cause it to become overcooked quickly.
For Cauliflower Puree
- Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil and cook the cauliflower florets for about 10 minutes. Drain and place on a paper towel to dry out. Leave for 10minutes to air dry a bit.
- In a small saucepan, combine the heavy cream with the butter and bring to a simmer over medium heat until the butter is melted, stir to combine.
- In a food processor, or blender, place the cauliflower along with the cream/butter mixture, and blitz until smooth. Then add in the salt, pepper, cayenne and nutmeg and run for another minute until smooth and well combined.
For Poblano Hollandaise
- For the poblano, roast on a grill turning every few minutes, until the skin is blackened all over. Remove from the grill and place in a bowl, cover with plastic wrap. After about 15 minutes, when cool enough to handle, the skin should slide right off the pepper. Remove the stem and seeds. Dice the pepper and set aside to be combined into the hollandaise sauce later.
- Place all ingredients except for the melted butter, into a blender, and blend until well combined. In order for this to work without having to fix it, your butter needs to be very hot, not just melted. If you try to put the butter into a microwave and heat it too long, you’ll have a giant mess in your microwave to clean. I would suggest placing the butter into a very small saucepan and heating it until melted and steaming. Once it is, slowly drizzle in the butter into a running blender. The key word being “slowly”, don’t rush this or you will lose any chance at emulsification. A very slow stream will work best. Once combined and emulsified, you are done! To this finished hollandaise sauce, stir in your diced poblano and you’ve got yourself a new take on a classic original.
- In the event your Hollandaise sauce doesn’t come together due to the butter not being hot enough, you can fix it by slowly adding 2 tablespoons of boiling water to the running blender, or slowly drizzle in an additional egg yolk with 1 tsp of very hot water.
