If you want to treat yourself to a special meal in a restaurant in the Zurich area, try Zürich Geschnetzeltes. It won’t be cheap as it contains a substantial amount of high-quality veal, but you won’t be disappointed either. Usually served with Rösti (Swiss-style hash browns), this dish is made with very tender, sliced veal, mushrooms and a light brown sauce based on cream and white wine.
To bring costs down I often cook this dish with good quality beef which is used for quick frying, or for an even cheaper version I use sliced chicken breasts, which goes perfectly well with the sauce and the mushrooms too. Here’s the original recipe with veal.
Recipe for 4 people
- 600g good quality, tender veal for quick frying, sliced in 1cm strips
- 1/2 tsp salt
- pepper
- 1 tbsp flour
- 1 small onion
- 200g closed-cup mushrooms
- 1 tsp lemon juice
- 1dl white wine
- 2dl cream
- 1dl beef or chicken stock
- 2 tbsp corn starch
- salt, pepper
- a handful of parsley
Method
Pre-heat oven to 60C and place ovenproof dish in the oven.
Sprinkle a little flour onto the veal. In a frying pan, fry the veal in a little oil at a high temperature. Fry it only just until all sides are browned – this will take about 3 minutes. Place the meat into the warm ovenproof dish in the oven.
Chop the onion and slice the mushrooms. Mix the mushrooms with the lemon juice. Add some more oil to the meat pan and gently fry the chopped onion. Once the onion is soft, add the mushrooms and fry for another 2 minutes.
Add the wine and reduce it through cooking until only half of the wine is left. In a separate bowl, mix the cream, stock and corn starch. Then add it to the pan. Reduce the heat and let it simmer until the sauce is slightly thicker, this will take about 3 minutes. Then season with salt and pepper.
Add the meat and the chopped parsley. Mix and only shortly let it get hot again in the pan. Serve instantly.
This dish goes well with Roesti, Knoepfli (Swiss home-made pasta) or any pasta.
Recipe source: Betty Bossi
This is one of my favorite Swiss dishes! I was a Foreign Exchange Student (from California) back in 1981. My host-family is wonderful! We still keep in touch today. They live in the Canton of Solothurn in the village of Wangen, bei Olten. Thank you for sharing this dish! It looks as good as I remember. The only different thing my host-mother did with this dish was put the veal, mushrooms and its sauce in a puff-pastry.
Hi yes you’re talking about Pastetli (the little puff pastry basket) with veal. It’s another traditional dish which I should write about soon too!
Hi, this recipe looks delicious and I can’t wait to try it. Can you post the recipe for your Rosti? It also looks fabulous.
Hi there! Yes there still is no rösti recipe on my blog. I should do it at some point!