Bryan Martin's veal schnitzel is out of this world thanks to ET chickens

You may have noticed, if you were one of the many folk who charged out to the Murrumbateman field days, just off the road as you passed Hall, is this very unusual setting.

Generally, if you are in the driver's seat you can't really take the time to observe what's happening just off the highway, mainly because at this point the two lanes head into one and there's always some sort of Bathurst 500-like race to get ahead of everyone else. Crazy stuff as you know, it's just so important to get past any learner drivers, trucks, and whatever antique car club is out cluttering up the country roads and cafes.

As I am now in the passenger seat as my son learns to drive, I get to look around more and did do a double take at this point. In one of the paddocks is this large metal structure on wheels. It's not unlike the Mars Pathfinder as depicted in Ridley Scott's The Martian. A more agricultural version sure, but it does for the world look like it's just landed from space and the inhabitants, who have left their world for reasons unknown, are chickens.

The various flaps and doors seem to open at some given point, and hundreds of space chooks emerge to explore the paddocks is search of intelligent life, a food source and dust bath. Then, as the sun goes down, they all climb back in, the doors close and the next day it has mysteriously moved a few fields away.

See, if you were in the clutter of cars racing for pole position at the field days, you missed an extraterrestrial event. I've often thought that chickens are intelligent and most likely to have come from another galaxy. It's something about the way they look at you, like they are thinking: "We are almost there, keep going human forms, enjoying our addictive flesh and daily pods, we have almost colonised your planet and one day soon will rule!"

I'm onto you, space chickens, don't you worry about that. However, despite my real concerns about being probed by yard birds, I do believe that everyone should have a cache of their own chooks. I've had them now for almost 15 years, and still rejoice in the eggs they produce so effortlessly, nature's perfect food.

However, the combination of a very cold winter and my chickens getting a little long in the tooth, we were into a second month of almost no eggs. You can understand why they might shut up shop when the temperature is sub-zero. Seriously I was thinking of rigging up an electric blanket to help their cause; reason and a wife stopped me so no eggs!

Disaster, that meant we had to go into the complex, and oft misleading, world of buying eggs. So I decided to stock up again with some pullets from the local rural supplies shop. I'm not sure what is was, and again it is more evidence that chickens are telepathically communicating extraterrestrials, but by the time I got them home, not only had the young chickens I just purchased started knocking out eggs in the box like a popcorn popper, my four old hens had collectively laid five eggs in my absence.

So I've gone from having no eggs to now having a fridge full of them and seriously, am running out of ways to cook them.

Now, I know it's nigh on impossible to improve on perfection. Take the humble schnitzel – yes, a new topic but hang in there – it is perfect, thin slices of veal fillet, seasoned, dusted in flour and then coated in bread crumbs, fried and eaten. The most perfect non-pork food there is. Sure, you can cover it with tomato and cheese and the equally awesome "parmi" appears. There is another option that will add to the perfection that is the schnitz.

This goes back to the Prussian war where one Otto von Bismarck unified Germany. At the time, apparently one of his civil servants, Friedrich von Holstein​, was in a cafe, and made the suggestion that the schnitzel he was enjoying with his pilsener could be improved by topping it with a fried egg, salty fish and other condiments.

So now, instead of the usual "parmi" or "schnitz" night, we have veal Holstein to use up more eggs that now fill every shelf in the fridge. I swear I can hear the chickens plotting their overthrow at night: "We now have them addicted to our cloaca orbs, let the probing begin …"

Veal Holstein

4 thin slices veal fillet
½ cup plain flour
6 eggs, two
1 cup Panko breadcrumbs
8 good quality anchovy fillets, sliced thinly lengthways
1 heaped tbsp salted baby capers, rinsed
Handful flat leaf parsley, chopped
1 lemon, cut into wedges
Salt, pepper, olive oil

If the veal is sliced too thick, bash it out, gently, with a meat hammer. Season each escalope of veal with salt and pepper, dust in flour, then coat with breadcrumbs and set aside. Crack the eggs into a small bowl and gently heat a large frypan with about a centimetre of olive oil, slip in the egg once the oil is getting warm and cook the eggs until they are just set. Scoop out and drain on absorbent paper, trim the edges. Let the oil come up to a higher temperature and cook the prepared veal at a good sizzle until they are crispy on both side and drain.

To serve, place the schnitzel on the centre of a warm plate. Add the confit eggs on top, add the sliced anchovy fillet, generally in a criss-cross pattern on the egg and scatter the dish with capers and parsley. Serve with the lemon wedge and a green salad.

Bryan Martin is the winemaker at Clonakilla and Ravensworth.