You can buy cutlets ready-made or make them from homemade minced meat and freeze them for future use. The taste of the products will be preserved for a long time if you do not defrost the cutlets before you start cooking them. Thawing and subsequent freezing will degrade the taste of the dish.
Use homemade or store-bought cutlets, and serve boiled buckwheat or mashed potatoes as a side dish. Chop a medium sized onion and 2 cloves of garlic. Place the onion and garlic in a frying pan with vegetable oil and fry until golden brown. Grate 1 large carrot on a coarse grater and fry it in oil as well.
Pour boiling water over 3-4 ripe tomatoes, remove the skin, finely chop the pulp and add to the vegetables. Salt the mixture, add 0.5 teaspoons of dried basil and rosemary, as well as freshly ground black pepper to taste. Stirring, simmer the vegetable sauce until the carrots are soft.
Place the cutlets (4-5 pieces) in a heat-resistant form without defrosting. Pour tomato sauce over them, close the mold with a lid and place in the oven preheated to 180°C.
Cook the cutlets for about half an hour, serve hot, topped with sauce.
Chop the onion and fry it in a little ghee.
Add 200 g of thinly sliced champignons and, stirring, fry for a few more minutes.
In a separate frying pan, fry 4 frozen cutlets until golden brown. Add them to the mushrooms and onions.
In a separate container, mix 1 cup sour cream with salt and freshly ground black pepper. Pour the mixture over the cutlets, cover the pan with a lid and simmer until done.
Serve with pasta or boiled rice.
Minced meat dishes are always popular. Adherents of a healthy diet are increasingly trying to cook them in a double boiler or bake them in the oven, but meatballs and cutlets fried in a frying pan still remain classics. Each housewife has her own family secret. There is far more than one recipe for delicious cutlets, and they can be prepared from any meat or fish.
More often, mixed minced meat is used for cooking. An equal mix of pork and beef makes the dish juicy without being too greasy. However, you can limit yourself to one type of meat. The advantage of a dish familiar in every home is that ready-made homemade cutlets can be frozen and provide food for the family for some time to come.
More and more often, housewives are buying ready-made minced meat. However, to get a real homemade dish, it is better to prepare the minced meat yourself. To do this, you will need a small piece of meat, preferably lean, and a good meat grinder. Each housewife chooses the additives herself. For example, this could be finely chopped onion, a little white bread soaked in milk, grated cheese or grated raw potatoes. These ingredients will make the cutlets more juicy. Any meat dish will benefit from the addition of finely chopped fresh herbs.
To make the dish tasty, you need to carefully select the fish. Gourmets appreciate trout, but then dinner turns out to be too expensive. The best option is river fish, for example, carp. Try making fish cutlets using this recipe:
You can also cook from whole fish, separating the fillet from the backbone yourself. Work order:
Classic beef cutlets are made without additives. Then you will have a product suitable for making American hamburgers. It can be served like a steak - with a side dish of fried egg. Compound:
The perfect beef patties come from the tenderloin. This dish won't cost you a lot. You can choose a soft piece of fillet - for example, the shoulder part. Try this cooking method:
Few people cook from pure pork - it is fatty meat. If you compare how many calories are in a pork and beef cutlet, then pork cutlets will definitely be more harmful. However, if you still want to cook them, do not skimp on meat - you need to buy lean pork without fatty layers, preferably tenderloin. The recipe could be like this:
Some housewives add raw potatoes to the minced meat instead of white bread. Thanks to this, the dish also becomes softer. In addition, you can add a raw egg, but eggless meatballs turn out crumbly and tender. Prepare the minced meat like this:
Recipes for chicken meat cutlets are varied - they can be gourmet “Pozharsky” or “Kyiv”, or they can be dietary chicken breast meatballs. The classic recipe is based on white meat - breast fillet:
If you want to prepare a dietary dish, then it is better to avoid cream and butter. In another case, the step-by-step cooking algorithm is as follows:
To properly fry cutlets, it is recommended to use vegetable oil - it is less harmful and high in calories than butter. You can also try frying in melted poultry fat that drips from a roasted goose or duck. If you are preparing a large portion, it is better to change the oil. It only takes seven minutes to completely fry the dish (it will be faster under the lid).
Everyone loves meat dishes, because they are delicious, they also satisfy hunger for a long time, and there are a great variety of them - so there is always something to choose from. Today we will tell you how to fry cutlets in a frying pan - so that your family will salivate at the mere sight of this dish. There is nothing too complicated in this process, but it still doesn’t hurt to know all the intricacies of cooking.
First of all, it is important to understand that cutlets require a special frying pan.
Over time, a natural non-stick coating forms on the surface of the cast iron.
Remember that a thin pan bottom can burn the bits much faster, turning a delicious crust into a tough, burnt crust.
Each dish has its own correct cooking technology, and cutlets here are no exception. Thus, many housewives complain about the meatballs being too fried, or, on the contrary, not being cooked well inside. In any case, it is best to fry the dish wisely so that the treat comes out exactly as required.
At the initial stage, you can fry the minced meat over medium heat, but later on you will have to reduce the heat, otherwise the cutlets will dry out and be tough.
You definitely can’t fry cutlets over high heat all the time, especially without a lid. You will almost certainly end up with burnt meatballs that will be very dry inside.
Please note that excess flour can play a cruel joke, making the surface of the cutlets too dense, even hard. Therefore, it is better not to overdo it with breading.
However, if you have a sticky frying pan or it does not have a non-stick coating, this trick will also help prevent the minced meat from sticking too much to the metal bottom of the frying pan.
Frozen semi-finished products are very easy, simple and quick to prepare - this is a real godsend for the modern housewife. Before frying these cutlets, you don’t even need to defrost them; the meat balls go into the frying pan straight from the freezer.
Now you will probably be able to cook the perfect meat dish, and you will know how to fry cutlets in a frying pan so that they do not remain raw on the inside and do not burn on the outside.
Such simple everyday cutlets. They are prepared from beef and pork, chicken and fish, vegetables and mushrooms. The side dish is traditionally pasta, potatoes or rice. It would seem that there is nothing easier than preparing such an ordinary dish. Well, who doesn’t know how to properly fry meat cutlets? However, anyone who is going to do this for the first time will definitely encounter certain difficulties. Surely, many novice housewives ended up with cutlets that were either burnt, or not cooked inside, or too dry and tasteless, or simply fell apart or stuck to the pan. There are simple rules that will help you learn how to properly fry cutlets so that they turn out aromatic, juicy and tender, and the cooking process becomes pleasant and easy.
The taste of the cutlets depends on the quality of the meat, the composition of the products and the cooking technology. It is best to buy the ingredients and make the minced meat yourself. To do this you will need 0.5 kg of meat, 1 egg, 3 pieces of stale loaf, 1-2 onions, salt and ground black pepper to taste, breadcrumbs or flour. Cut the meat into pieces and grind through a meat grinder. The onion can be rolled together with the meat or finely chopped with a knife, but it is best to grate it on a fine grater - this will make the cutlets more juicy. Next, add the egg, crustless loaf soaked in milk or water, salt, pepper and mix thoroughly.
Take the minced meat with a spoon, place it on your palm and transfer it from one palm to the other several times. Give the cutlet the desired shape by patting the surface. When making cutlets, your hands need to be moistened with cold water each time so that the minced meat does not stick to them. Cutlets can be oblong or round, their usual size is 10 cm in length, 5 cm in width and about 2 cm in thickness, but some housewives make smaller cutlets. The main thing is to cook cutlets of the same size in the frying pan at the same time, otherwise large ones may be undercooked, and small ones will turn out too dry.
So, how to properly fry meat cutlets? First, roll them in flour or bread crumbs, then place them in a well-heated frying pan with a little oil. If the pan is not hot enough, the cutlets will stick. In a hot frying pan, the cutlets quickly form a golden brown crust, which prevents them from spreading and the juices from leaking out. Once the crust has formed, turn them over with a wooden spatula and place on low heat. How to fry cutlets correctly - with or without a lid? It is believed that when the lid is covered, the dish loses less moisture and turns out juicier. You need to cover the cutlets with a lid after turning them over, but you don’t have to cover them - it’s a matter of taste. To check readiness, you should pierce the cutlet - if clear juice flows out, it’s ready, if the juice is cloudy or contains blood, you need to keep it on the fire. Some housewives immediately fry the cutlets on both sides over high heat until a crust forms, then reduce the heat, add water, cover the pan with a lid and bring the dish to readiness.
There are various options for preparing cutlets, and every housewife, after experimenting, knows exactly how to fry cutlets correctly to please the household.
As for meat, cutlets can be made from beef, veal, lamb, pork, chicken, turkey. Many housewives prepare combined minced meat. The meat is either minced through a meat grinder or finely chopped by hand. turn out more juicy.
Minced meat can be made from fatty meat, that is, minced with meat and lard. Just don’t add too much fat, otherwise the cutlets will lose their shape and become small when frying. Some housewives do not put an egg in the minced meat, believing that this makes the cutlets tougher.
You can put both wheat and rye bread into the minced meat, as they say, “it’s not for everyone.” It can be soaked in water or milk and combined with minced meat, or put into a meat grinder along with the meat, and water or milk added separately. You should not put soft fresh bread into the minced meat - it makes the cutlets sticky.
You can add a lot of onions - there are fans for whom the amount of onions in the minced meat is half the weight of the meat. Vegetables, both raw and boiled, are often placed in cutlets. This could be potatoes, zucchini, pumpkin, carrots or a mixture of vegetables. In addition to black pepper and salt, other things that are added to the minced meat are cinnamon, red pepper, mustard, and chopped herbs.
How to fry cutlets in a frying pan with In this case, you do not need to roll them in flour or breadcrumbs. If the frying pan is burnt, then before adding a new batch, you need to remove the burnt layer or wash the frying pan. Ready-made cutlets are gray when cut, and if they are reddish, it means they are still undercooked.
With modern technologies, even a housewife who is under constant time pressure will be able to freeze raw meatballs, meatballs or dumplings for at least a week and diversify the family menu with freshly prepared dishes every day.
The taste of the product, subject to the manufacturing and storage conditions, does not change.
Frozen cutlets are especially good. If for dumplings, pancakes or dumplings we have to prepare both the dough and the filling, in this case everything is simple: we make blanks from the minced meat, and then put them in the freezer until they are needed.
You can prepare semi-finished products from meat, poultry, fish or vegetables (vegetarian option).
The principles of freezing are the same everywhere. Let's look at them using meat cutlets as an example.
We make minced meat from familiar products. Since semi-finished products can become dry after freezing, some housewives try to take two types of meat for them: one fattier - pork or lamb, the second - less high-calorie, most often beef.
Fish cutlets are flavored with twisted lard.
Raw onions and garlic added to minced meat may partially lose their taste when stored in the freezer. It is recommended to lightly fry them first and then add them to our semi-finished product. In addition, cutlets with cheese and onions have a shorter shelf life than without it.
The minced meat should be immediately salted and spices added.
The next stage will ensure the integrity of our workpiece during frying. To prevent the cutlets from falling apart in the pan, the minced meat must be thoroughly kneaded and beaten. Then the structure of the meat mass will be homogeneous, and the output will be a juicy, soft and fluffy product.
Let's form our cutlets. It is advisable to throw them from palm to palm several times - a kind of “mini-beat” or hit the board several times.
Although every housewife has her own idea of ideal cutlets, let us remind you that it is not advisable to sculpt large products. They may fall apart when turned in the pan. Cutlets that are too tall will remain raw in the middle, while thin ones will dry out and harden. The optimal thickness of the semi-finished product is 2 cm.
The taste of the product changes slightly, but this does not pose a particular problem. If you want the feeling that our products are “piping hot,” it’s best not just to heat them up, but to simmer them in some rich sauce.
Freezing ready-made cutlets is simple: after cooling completely, place the result of culinary creativity in a food container (it can crumble in a bag) and send it for storage.
Both homemade and store-bought semi-finished products are prepared in the same way. However, factory-made products also need to be chosen correctly. We advise you to pay attention to the following points:
note
GOST or TU? We already know that high-quality products are manufactured only in accordance with government regulations. But manufacturers often use a trick: they indicate on the packaging of goods produced according to technical specifications (and they can be absolutely arbitrary) the GOST number, which they supposedly rely on. Don't fall into this trap. The “TU” marking clearly indicates that clear product quality standards are far from achieved.
Weighed semi-finished products have a number of disadvantages: the date of their production, composition and manufacturing conditions are unknown. The main advantage is low cost. If you have to save money, you need to buy goods only from trusted brands.
Most chefs agree that it is better not to do this. After defrosting, cutlets easily lose their shape, “float”, and their taste deteriorates.
However, the question remains whether the meat will have time to cook if semi-finished products are fried, for example, in a frying pan or in the microwave. If you have such concerns, you can defrost the cutlets in the same microwave for about 5 minutes at a power of 600 W. Or remove it from the freezer in advance and keep it in the refrigerator for a while to let it “dead” a little.
But there are culinary tricks that allow you to bring the product to full readiness without such manipulations. We'll talk about them below.
Heat the oil until light smoke appears. You need to choose fat according to the composition of the cutlets:
Place our semi-finished products without defrosting and fry for 8 to 10 minutes on each side until golden brown.
Attention!
The bottom of the pan should be thick or have a Teflon coating to prevent the product from burning. No need to add salt or spices!
Don’t forget about the splashes that will be caused by liquid from the cutlets getting into the oil. Therefore, if we do not strive to get a crispy crust at all costs, it is better to immediately cover the pan with a lid.
You can do this after quick frying over medium heat, reducing it to low. This way we will simmer the cutlets so that the middle does not remain damp, which is dangerous, especially when we are dealing with store-bought products.
On a note
How long to specifically fry the product in a frying pan depends on the minced meat chosen. Pork products take the longest to prepare – up to 20 minutes. Poultry and fish are twice as fast (10 – 12 minutes).
Clear juice is released from finished meat products.
When stewing, you can add a little water, spices, fried onions, tomato paste or sour cream to the pan. The result will be an excellent sauce that will improve the taste of cutlets, especially store-bought ones.
Semi-finished products can be baked - it will turn out to be an excellent dietary dish.
There are two ways:
Alternatively, you can use a cooking sleeve.
If you have a wonderful steaming device, all you have to do is place the frozen cutlets on a wire rack and cook for 30 minutes. If the meat remains pinkish inside, you need to wait another quarter of an hour.
This option is only suitable for devices equipped with a grill.
The finished frozen cutlets should be placed in a glass container for the microwave, covered with a lid and heated for 14 minutes at a power of 650 W. Then turn off the device and let the product stand for 2-3 minutes.
There are enough ways to prepare frozen semi-finished products for every housewife to choose the most suitable option for herself. It is only advisable to make cutlets with your own hands, and not rely on factory manufacturers.