Cutlets can be made from anything: fish, meat, vegetables, beans and mushrooms, eggs, cheeses and even cereals - everything can come in handy.
They come in different shapes and sizes, with filling and without it. Cutlets are fried, stewed, steamed and baked in the oven.
In each national cuisine there are dozens or even hundreds of minced dishes, which are a variety of meatballs with a local name.
Schnitzel, kebab, cordon-blue - all of these and many other names of minced dishes have similar cooking technology with some features of the national color, which is created with the help of certain types of meat.
For example, in the kitchens of Muslims, pork is not used, but beef, lamb, and poultry meat are very widespread. Religious beliefs of some regional cuisines of India prohibit the use of meat in general, but in some Indian provinces it is allowed to prepare dishes from chicken. In the vegetarian or vegan cuisine, too, there are recipes for simple, tasty meatballs, partially or completely eliminating the use of animal products from the recipe.
The types of meat, fish or vegetables used for cutlets depend not only on religious canons and personal convictions, but also on the cultivation of traditional livestock products for each locality or crop production, whose productivity directly depends on the geographical and climatic conditions of the area and forms the basis of the local cuisine.
Therefore, recipes for simple and tasty cutlets can be talked about indefinitely, but, given the variety of ingredients used, methods of heat treatment of ready-made semi-finished products, let's stop at the mechanical processing of ingredients and methods of forming semi-finished products.
For the minced meat cutlet, meat or fish fillets, previously washed and cleaned of bones, films, tendons, are used, and for fish cakes, except for bones, skin is removed. Then the fillets are washed again, dried and crushed. Chopped meat is cooked with sharp knives, slicing fillets into small pieces or using kitchen appliances. Depending on the type of meatballs, the meat or fish fillets are ground once or twice (for sausage), achieving the required consistency. The binding of minced meat occurs due to the addition of egg proteins, flour, starch, cereals containing gluten. For natural meatballs, from meat or fish, without the use of egg white and other components, mechanical processing is important — beating meat. To do this, salt is added to the minced fillet, which contributes to the intensive release of juice, flavoring additives, after which the stuffing is beaten off, throwing it onto the work surface. The juice produced is collagen or the same protein, but contained in the tissues of the meat that binds the minced particles. Tossing meat in this case enhances its release. After beating meat or fish stuffing requires some time for ripening. Collagen released during cooling should acquire a sticky, jelly-like consistency so that the burgers do not crumble during the frying process.
Minced meat cutlet, which includes cereals, retains its shape with the help of gluten contained in cereals. Rice or other cereals, as a rule, are pre-boiled to obtain a viscous consistency, and then added to the cutlet mass. Grains with a lower percentage of gluten are added to the mince along with egg white to increase the viscosity, which contributes to the preservation of the shape.
An important point in the preparation of cutlet mass - compliance with certain proportions of ingredients. If you cook meat patties, then at least 70% of minced meat should consist of meat.
For the preparation of vegetable meatballs, it is necessary to take into account the moisture content in the main product, so that the minced meat can be used to form semi-finished products of the desired shape. It is not worth increasing the mass of additional components, for example, in potato or carrot cutlets. So that the juice from the vegetable mince does not interfere with giving the desired shape or size of vegetable semi-finished products, it is enough to squeeze out its surplus without adding too much cereals, flour or eggs, which will preserve the characteristic taste of this recipe for simple and tasty cutlets. In the selection of combinations of ingredients and spices for meatballs follow the recipe or your own taste. Of course, if it is stated that for dinner, cutlets in the style of Eastern, Caucasian or Hawaiian cuisine will be served, then it is desirable to take into account their peculiarities and use products typical of these culinary regions. Minor deviations from the characteristic style are allowed.
Before you get acquainted with the recipes and start “testing” them in the kitchen, we note that when it comes to ease of preparation, it is important to remember that the execution of any recipe can be brought to automaticity: this only requires practical experience. The main criterion for evaluating ease of preparation is elapsed time. As for the creation of taste, in this matter it is important to rely on the sense of proportion and its own receptors.
Now we come to the most popular recipes for simple and tasty meatballs, which occupy the first places in the Russian-language search engines.
1. A simple recipe for delicious pork and beef cutlets - Home-made burgers
Ingredients:
Pork neck (pulp) 0.5 kg
Beef (fillet) 500 g
Ground pepper
Onions 150g
Roll or white bread 200 g
Garlic 40-50 g
Salt, fine
Eggs, raw 2 pcs.
Milk 100 ml
Refined oil 200 ml
Cooking:
Cut the prepared meat fillet, garlic and onion; grind. Add the bread soaked in milk to the mince. Re-skip the minced meat in a meat grinder, beat the eggs, add spices. Knock stuffing and put the container with him in the fridge; soak for about half an hour.
Form oval and flat cutlets. If desired, you can breaded semi-finished products and fry in oil, or simmer in meat broth, without breading, adding chopped vegetables, chopped greens.
2. Recipe for simple delicious frozen mackerel meatballs
Ingredients:
Mackerel (fillet without skin) 600 g
Egg 1 pc.
Butter 90 g
Bun 180 g
Milk 100 ml Onion 120g
Pepper
Salt
Rusk white 150 g
Cooking:
Blend the onion and fish into a homogeneous mass. Mash the bread dipped in milk and add to the minced fish, season with salt and pepper, mix. Form flat circles and in each place 10-15 g of frozen butter. Wrap the butter in minced meat. Beat in the egg and, brushing the cutlets with it, breaded in breadcrumbs.
It is better to fry fish cakes with the addition of butter.
3. A simple recipe for delicious chicken breast cutlets with mushrooms
Ingredients:
Mushrooms, fried with onions 600 g
Chicken breast, chop 1.2 kg
Lyeon (2 eggs and 50 ml of milk)
Cedar nuts, 150 g
White loaf 400 g
Deep fryer for frying
Cooking:
Beat off the white meat to make very thin plates. Wrap them in fried mushrooms, dividing them by the number of chops from chicken breast.
Cut off the crust from the white loaf, and rub the crumb on a large grater. Connect the crumb with chopped pine nuts. Cook the lemon by beating the eggs and adding the milk and spices to them, salt it. Chicken zrazy with mushrooms, moisten in cooked egg-milk mixture and roll in a peanut-breadcrumbs twice. Deep fry.
4. Recipe for simple tasty pork chop cutlets with liver pate
Ingredients:
Pork tenderloin 900 g
Bow 100
Carrots 150g
Spice
Butter 120g
Beef liver 600 g
Flour 50 g
Eggs 2 pcs.
Rusk 150g
Cooking:
Free the liver from the film and bile ducts, wash and lightly wash. Peeled and chopped vegetables. Connect the cooled pieces of liver, vegetables and butter. Add spices, smash the mass to get a paste of a delicate and uniform texture.
Cut the cut into equal parts, repel. Wrap the liver paste in thin layers of pulp. Rolls roll in flour, in whipped eggs and in breadcrumbs.
Fry patties can be deep-fried or baked in the oven.
5. A simple recipe for delicious Donbass cutlets
Ingredients:
Eggs 3 pcs.
Flour 100 g
Crackers 250 g
Minced meat (pork, veal) 1.2 kg
Frozen butter, cream 180 g
Spice
White, unsweetened loaf (crumb, crumb)
Cooking:
Pork and veal, take in equal parts and finely chop with a knife. Salt, pepper to taste, beat off and cool for an hour.
Beat the eggs, add a little water to the egg foam (50-60 ml), stir. Meat and frozen butter divided into six portions. Form minced cakes 0.5 cm thick. Grease the inside with a beaten egg and place a piece of butter inside of each patty. Wrap butter with minced meat, form oblong patties (5x8 cm), convex shape. Roll them in flour, then in egg and in breadcrumbs. Repeat the breading, completing it by wrapping the patties in a large white crumb from a roll.
Donbass cutlets are deep-fried.
6. Recipe for simple tasty oriental-style cutlets
Ingredients:
Sour cream 100 g
Egg 2 pcs.
Beef 1.0 kg
Fine salt
Prunes 60g
Dried apricots 120 g
Sesame 150 g
Dried barberries 50 g
Flour 100 g
Pepper, ground
Cooking:
Washed beef pulp chop, season with salt, spices. Washed dried fruits pour boiling water for a quarter of an hour, pour out water and, after slightly drying, chop too. Combine dried fruit with sour cream and mix with meat. Form balls 100 g, moistened in an egg, roll in flour. Repeat deboning in egg and sprinkle with sesame. Fry the patties in deep fat. Serve with sweet and sour pomegranate sauce with oriental spices.
7. A simple recipe for delicious meatballs: Mexican cuisine
Ingredients:
Apples 200 g
Hard cheese 150 g
Onions 100g
Minced pork 0.5 kg
Marinated mushrooms 100 g
Egg (white) 1 pc.
Pepper, dried basil, salt
Cooking:
From chopped onions and mushrooms, coarsely grated cheese prepare the filling for Mexican cutlets.
Chopped pork combine with spices and eggs; make cakes from meat and stuff them with cooked stuffing. Cut the apples into small cubes, after removing the seed part from them and removing the peel.
Place the cutlets on a baking sheet, tuck them into slices of apples and bake at 180C, 40 minutes. The cutlets in Mexican style are served hot with salsa sauce.
Recipe for simple and tasty cutlets - tricks and useful tips
- Beating the minced meat cutlet, first put it in a plastic bag so that after cooking the cutlets it was not necessary to do general cleaning of the kitchen, pick up pieces of meat from the ceiling and rinse the splashes of meat juice from the walls.
- Fishcakes will be tastier if you add not raw, but browned in onion butter into the stuffing.
- To make the chops not scatter, start frying them in a hot frying pan. After frying on one side, turn it over, lower the temperature, cover with a lid and continue frying, on the other side. The lid should be covered so that the cutlet roasts inside, but in order to get crisp with this method of cooking, at the end of frying, remove the lid, turn the cutlets again and hold for a couple more minutes, waiting for the excess moisture to evaporate.
