The question of why cutlets fall apart when frying is asked by many housewives. In order for the cutlets to cook well, you need to observe a few points. And the main one is the correctly selected proportions of ingredients for minced meat.
The importance of minced meat consistency
Cutlets are one of the most important and most popular dishes of the everyday table. A festive feast rarely does without them, and almost any housewife considers it her duty to be able to cook delicious, juicy and beautiful cutlets. But in order for them to turn out as such and not fall apart during the frying process, you need to know some important points of their preparation.
The main reason why cutlets fall apart is the wrong consistency of the minced meat. You need to try so that it is not liquid and not very greasy. To achieve this consistency, you can add additional ingredients to the minced meat.
White bread
This ingredient has become almost an integral part of any recipe for making cutlets. To add bread to minced meat, you must first soak it in warm boiled water (not milk!). The approximate ratio of bread and meat is 20% and 80%, then the minced meat turns out to be the most successful and tasty. Another important point is that the bread should be hard or even stale and not have burnt crusts.
Semolina
If the hostess does not have bread in the house, but there is semolina, then it is quite suitable for adding to the minced meat, and the result will be no worse.
For a kilogram of minced meat, a tablespoon of cereal is taken, which is thoroughly mixed with meat, and then all this is left for several hours - so that the semolina swells.
Potatoes and other vegetables
Instead of bread or semolina, you can add potatoes, carrots, cabbage, etc. to the minced meat. Vegetables are grated on a fine grater and thoroughly mixed with meat. These ingredients will add an interesting unique taste to the cutlets.
Eggs
It is best to use only yolks, as experienced housewives advise. However, this only applies to meat cutlets. Eggs can be added to fish or vegetable cutlets together with proteins, that is, whole.
The most important thing is not to overdo it with the number of eggs used, otherwise the finished cutlets will look like rubber and it will be very difficult to eat them.
What, besides the composition, affects the quality of the cutlets?
To prevent the cutlets from falling apart during the frying process, you need to thoroughly mix the minced meat until a homogeneous mass is obtained.
If everything is in order with the minced meat: it is well mixed, it contains bread or other additional ingredients, but the cutlets still fall apart when frying, then you can try to reduce the amount of oil in the pan.
It is equally important to gently turn the cutlets, and it is better to do this with not one, but two spatulas.
Beating minced meat
Another equally important way to achieve strong and beautiful cutlets is to beat the minced meat. When beating, the meat fibers soften, the minced meat becomes a homogeneous smooth mass, and not pieces stuck together. Plus, after beating, meat juice is formed, and the cutlets are obtained with a crust on the outside and very juicy on the inside.
It is not difficult to beat off minced meat. If there is a lot of meat, it is better to divide it into several not very large parts. Each part should be made into a flat, but not thin cutlet, which later will need to be thrown hard on the table.
Of course, it is best to do this on a flat and wide cutting board so as not to stain the countertop with meat.
The meat should be thrown at least 20 times, and better - about 40. The purpose of this action is to ensure that the meat does not crack on impact, but spreads over the surface. Thus, you can achieve smoothness, softness and uniformity of the minced meat.
Cutlets made from such minced meat will definitely not fall apart when frying.
