Introduction to Traditional German Cooking

Series Summary

Sausage, bratwurst, sauerkraut, pork and beer seem to always come to mind when anyone is talking about German cuisine. Among these outstanding culinary contributions the German people have made to the world, is their wienerschnitzel, potato pancakes, and sauerkraut casseroles. You don't have to go to Germany or even to a German restaurant to enjoy these three delicious meals. Instead, you can learn how to prepare these traditional German dishes in the comfort of your own home.

In this free online German recipe video series, learn from gourmet chef Rainer Wickel how to prepare German potato pancakes, wienerschnitzel, and a German sauerkraut casserole. This expert chef will teach you about traditional German cooking, what wienerschnitzel is, what German potato pancakes are, what a sauerkraut casserole is, and the ingredients and utensils needed to create these traditional German dishes. Rainer will demonstrate how to prepare all the ingredients to make wienerschnitzel, potato pancakes, and sauerkraut casserole; how to prepare the oil to cook wienerschnitzel; how to flatten and tenderize the meat to make wienerschnitzel; how to bread schnitzel meat; how to fry wienerschnitzel; how to peel potatoes; how to cook German potato pancakes; and how to prepare a traditional German sauerkraut casserole.

Video Transcript

"Hi! My name is Chef Rainer Wickel and today I am coming to you from expertvillage.com. Well today we are going to be traditional German cooking. I have lived all over the world and I have learned how to make quite a few different International recipes but this is kind of going back to my roots. This is the kind of stuff that pretty much grew up with and both of my parents are from Germany and you know I basically ate all of this stuff growing up. We are going to be starting out making a wiener schnitzel. Now if you go to Germany, any German restaurant is going to have a schnitzel on the menu. Now there are various different types of schnitzels but the most common type is the wiener schnitzel. Actually it is the wiener arch schnitzel which is kind of a specific way that a schnitzel is made. The second recipe that I am going to share with you is German potato pancakes. Now German potato pancakes, there are all sorts of different ways to make German potato pancakes. The one that I am going to be sharing with you today is particularly from the region of Essen in Germany and this is probably the best darn German potato pancake that you can eat. The third recipe that I am going to sharing with you is sauerkraut receipt. Any German cooking lesson isn't complete with out some kind of a sauerkraut recipe and today I am going to be showing you how to make a sauerkraut casserole. Now this particular sauerkraut casserole is absolutely delicious. This is a recipe that was handed to me from my mother and she makes this all the time for her friends and I have learned how to do it and all my friends are asking me how to make it too. So let's go ahead and have some fun today and let's do some German cooking. "