Chopped meat dishes are available in the cuisine of almost any country in the world. For us, the most common option is cutlets. There are a lot of ways to cook this simple, at first glance, dish. And they differ primarily in the composition of the stuffing.
The classic recipe for minced meatballs is as follows: wash pork and beef in equal proportions (500 grams each), dry with a paper towel and pass through a meat grinder (it would be better to take a bigger mesh). For this amount of meat you need to take 3-4 medium-sized onions and the same number of garlic cloves. They also go to a meat grinder. Then we soak a slice of white bread in milk and, having squeezed, we grind it also. We break 2-3 eggs into the resulting mass.
Salt and ground black pepper are added to taste. Thoroughly mix all the ingredients, adding 50 grams of sparkling mineral water to the minced meat. From the resulting mass, we form round or oval cutlets. In a hot pan we literally pour a couple of tablespoons of vegetable oil and, when it boils, put our cutlets. The first minute and a half we leave a strong fire, and then reduce it to moderate. After 10 minutes, turn the patties and lower the heat to low. After 15-20 minutes, the dish is ready. The recipe for minced meatballs can be changed at your discretion. For example, instead of white bread, add 2 medium potatoes, and a long-familiar dish will seem somewhat different to you. And adding 1 carrot, you get cutlets with a faint sweetish flavor.
You can also add nothing: no bread, no potatoes, no carrots. And then you get purely meat, but no less tasty cutlets. Experiment and be sure to find the recipe that will become your favorite. Another recipe for minced meatballs includes 1 kilogram of white chicken meat and 800 grams of onion. Moreover, half of the onion portion is passaged in vegetable oil, and the second half remains raw. All this is passed through a meat grinder. Onion in such quantity is needed so that dry white meat during the cooking process becomes juicy. Garlic is added at will, but salt and pepper - to taste. In this recipe for minced meatballs, just add 1-2 raw eggs. Fry in the same way as in the first recipe.
And another option for cooking minced meat for cutlets. He has a lot of fans and is also prepared from dietary chicken meat, but this time instead of white meat, buy ham (preferably the thigh part - there is more meat). We wash the chicken thighs well under running water, remove the skin containing a huge amount of fat, and separate the meat from the bone. We pass it through a meat grinder along with onions. Unlike the previous one, this recipe for minced meatballs does not require a large amount of onion, 2 medium onions are enough. Per kilogram of meat: a pair of eggs, a pair of garlic cloves, minced through a meat grinder, ground black pepper and salt - that’s all you need to prepare the most tender minced meat. No matter how you cook these cutlets: fried in vegetable oil or just in a double boiler, you and your family will definitely like them.
To prepare fish cakes, you will need fresh fish weighing one and a half to two kilograms (this can be pike, carp, silver carp or pike perch). We rinse off dust and dirt, cleanse of scales, gutting, remove the skin with a sharp knife and cut off the head. Carefully separate the fish meat from the bones, and grind the resulting fillet through a meat grinder. Unlike minced meat, fish requires less onion (1 large onion is enough for 1 kilogram of fillet). An excess of onions during cooking will kill the aroma of the fish itself, and this is unacceptable. Add a couple of raw eggs, they will hold together the resulting mass, salt and pepper to taste. We form cutlets of minced fish and put them in a pan with boiling oil. Cutlets are fried for about ten minutes on each side. A delicious dish turns out!