Making Pork Schnitzel from a Costco Kit
One of the nice things about shopping at Costco is their wide variety of ready-to-cook meals. Some of them are on the basic end of the range, like packages of pre-seasoned meat. At the opposite end are meal kits, with multiple ingredients and/or side dishes included in a package. One that caught my eye on a shopping trip two weeks ago was this German-style pork schnitzel.
The kit includes the ingredients for what's in the picture: pre-cooked pork cutlets, breading to coat them (and pan-fry them), and mushroom gravy to serve with them.
Not everybody's interested in looking through pics of the prep work so I'll put those behind a spoiler guard. Skip down to the finished result if you prefer!
[Unboxing and prep steps (click/tap to expand)]
The kit contains 3 packages. There's the meat, pre-cooked pork; a package of mushroom gravy, and a package of breading mix.
I measure the package of meat at 23.6 ounces. I figure that's 23 ounces sans packaging, and probably closer to 21 ounces of actual meat once the juices are poured out. I mention this because the whole kit is sold by weight at a price of $5.99/pound. You might think, "Oh, $5.99 for prepared meat is good!" But the entire package is marked- and priced- at a weight of 2.585 pounds. The actual meat is only half the product by weight.
The first cooking step is to reheat the meat in the microwave. It's already precooked. Then, coat it with the breadcrumb mixture.
I was a little leery of how well the breading mix would stick as there's no batter here. Yes, I'm actually very familiar with batter-and-flour/batter-and-crumb coatings; I used to cook them professionally! Thankfully the plain coating did stick fine. I had to make sure to coat it thoroughly, though, and be careful about how I touched the coated pieces as anywhere a finger touches removes the coating.
The next step was to pan-fry the coated meat for 1.5 minutes per side.
Here you can see two things. First, a lot of the coating flecked off in the pan. It wasn't a problem, though. Two, the mixture browned too much on the first side I cooked. As I flipped the meat I reduced the heat, looking to achieve more of a golden-brown than brown-brown color. Getting the meat cooked through is not a concern as it's fully pre-cooked. So the purpose of the sauté here is just to get the desired color and texture.
Here's the finished meal.
The spaetzle (a German style egg noodle pasta) and wine are sold separately. 😅
Other than that, the result looks pretty much like the picture on the box. That's a good thing! Too often with these ready-to-eat meals and meal kits what you get at the end of the process looks like a very sad version of the pics on the box.
But how does it taste? Well, that's where the news is not so good. It tastes bland.
The pork cutlets, the main part of the dish, are tough, dense, and flavorless. The breading turned out to stick on fairly well even though there was no batter with it. It adds a bit of crunchy texture... but alas no real flavor. And the delicate flavor of the mushroom gravy completely disappears when paired with the pork. I found it was more enjoyable mopping up with the spaetzle I added.
Would I buy this again? No. But it does inspire me to try making schnitzel on my own. I mean, this kit shows that it can't be that hard. The only time savings it offered was not having to a) cut and sauté pork or chicken, and b) make mushroom gravy. I can buy mushroom gravy in a jar or make it from a package, so there's not a lot of savings there.
The kit includes the ingredients for what's in the picture: pre-cooked pork cutlets, breading to coat them (and pan-fry them), and mushroom gravy to serve with them.
Not everybody's interested in looking through pics of the prep work so I'll put those behind a spoiler guard. Skip down to the finished result if you prefer!
[Unboxing and prep steps (click/tap to expand)]
The kit contains 3 packages. There's the meat, pre-cooked pork; a package of mushroom gravy, and a package of breading mix.
I measure the package of meat at 23.6 ounces. I figure that's 23 ounces sans packaging, and probably closer to 21 ounces of actual meat once the juices are poured out. I mention this because the whole kit is sold by weight at a price of $5.99/pound. You might think, "Oh, $5.99 for prepared meat is good!" But the entire package is marked- and priced- at a weight of 2.585 pounds. The actual meat is only half the product by weight.
The first cooking step is to reheat the meat in the microwave. It's already precooked. Then, coat it with the breadcrumb mixture.
I was a little leery of how well the breading mix would stick as there's no batter here. Yes, I'm actually very familiar with batter-and-flour/batter-and-crumb coatings; I used to cook them professionally! Thankfully the plain coating did stick fine. I had to make sure to coat it thoroughly, though, and be careful about how I touched the coated pieces as anywhere a finger touches removes the coating.
The next step was to pan-fry the coated meat for 1.5 minutes per side.
Here you can see two things. First, a lot of the coating flecked off in the pan. It wasn't a problem, though. Two, the mixture browned too much on the first side I cooked. As I flipped the meat I reduced the heat, looking to achieve more of a golden-brown than brown-brown color. Getting the meat cooked through is not a concern as it's fully pre-cooked. So the purpose of the sauté here is just to get the desired color and texture.
Here's the finished meal.
The spaetzle (a German style egg noodle pasta) and wine are sold separately. 😅
Other than that, the result looks pretty much like the picture on the box. That's a good thing! Too often with these ready-to-eat meals and meal kits what you get at the end of the process looks like a very sad version of the pics on the box.
But how does it taste? Well, that's where the news is not so good. It tastes bland.
The pork cutlets, the main part of the dish, are tough, dense, and flavorless. The breading turned out to stick on fairly well even though there was no batter with it. It adds a bit of crunchy texture... but alas no real flavor. And the delicate flavor of the mushroom gravy completely disappears when paired with the pork. I found it was more enjoyable mopping up with the spaetzle I added.
Would I buy this again? No. But it does inspire me to try making schnitzel on my own. I mean, this kit shows that it can't be that hard. The only time savings it offered was not having to a) cut and sauté pork or chicken, and b) make mushroom gravy. I can buy mushroom gravy in a jar or make it from a package, so there's not a lot of savings there.