To cook the cutlets correctly, they do not need to be baked, but fried. The result depends not only on the quality of the products used, but also on such nuances as breading, the amount of oil and the heating of the pan during frying.
Minced meat
The main ingredient in cutlets is minced meat. It can be any - beef, pork, chicken or fish. The main thing is that it was prepared by you, and not bought in a store. This is the only way you can be sure of its quality. You can make a combined mince by taking, for example, a piece of pork and beef. Cut the meat into pieces and rotate it through a meat grinder while adding the onion. If you are good with fried onions, then it is better to fry some of the onions and add it to the resulting minced meat.
In addition, an egg (one per half a kilogram of meat), squeezed garlic and, of course, salt and seasonings are added to the minced meat. But the cutlets will turn out to be properly cooked only if you add a loaf previously soaked in milk to the minced meat. But do not leave it in milk for too long, otherwise it will get too wet.
There is a little secret in the preparation of minced meat for cutlets. Add to it raw potatoes, grated on a fine grater or minced. In this case, the cutlets will turn out to be tender and airy.
Now you can shape future cutlets. With your palms moistened with water, shape the cutlets into the desired shape. You need to moisten your palms before each cutlet so that the minced meat does not stick to your hands. But before you start frying, use a little trick. Place the convenience foods in the freezer for twenty minutes. So the minced meat will set a little, and the cutlets will not fall apart during cooking, even if this is your first time doing it.
Frying cutlets
An important point in preparing the right cutlets is to heat the pan. Put a frying pan over medium heat, pour oil into it, preferably more, so that when immersed, the cutlets are half hidden in it. And start breading. Semi-finished products can simply be rolled in flour or breadcrumbs. But it is better to make a breading, ideally even double. This breading will make the cutlets as juicy as possible, since all the juice will remain inside, and the crust will crunch pleasantly.
Fry the patties only over medium heat. A small fire will dry them out, and a strong fire will fry them from below, leaving them half-baked inside.
Fry the patties for a few minutes on each side until golden brown. After that, you need to reduce the heat to minimum, cover the pan with a lid and fry the cutlets until tender. If you have little experience, you can pierce one cutlet. In ready-made cutlets, the juice is clear, and in underfried it is reddish, mixed with blood. This will result in a total frying time of about twenty minutes.
