Potato zrazy with minced meat is an original and tasty dish, typical for Belarusian and Polish cuisine. It has two cooking options. In the first case, all the ingredients are mixed and cakes are formed from the resulting mass. The second way is to prepare a potato mass, from which tortillas are made, in the middle of which the filling will be inhibited, that is, zrazy turns out like pies. Both of these cooking methods have their advantages, so you can alternate them, varying your menu.
The form of zraz can be any. They are made in the form of rolls, koloboks or oblong cutlets. Differ in variety and fillings, which are prepared from vegetables, meat, cheese, mushrooms or eggs.
Let's try to cook potato zrazy with minced meat according to the classic recipe. We need about 800 grams of potatoes, two eggs, 4-6 tablespoons of flour or potato starch, salt and pepper. From these products we will prepare the basis of our dish.
Potatoes must first be boiled in their skins or baked in the oven, you can use a double boiler and cook potatoes for a couple. Then it needs to be cleaned (of course, previously cooled) and chopped. It is difficult to knead cooled potatoes with a pestle or “crush”, it is easier to use a blender or a meat grinder.
Break eggs into mashed potatoes, add salt and seasonings, add flour or starch. The amount of flour in the recipe is indicated approximately, since it depends on the size of the eggs, the variety of potatoes and the method of its preparation. We need to get a potato dough of such a density that it does not stick much to our hands.
In order to cook zrazy, in addition to the potato base, you need to prepare the meat filling. There are options here. You can use the prepared minced meat, frying it until tender along with onions and seasonings. Another option is the preparation of meat filling from boiled meat. To do this, cooked and chilled meat must be chopped using a meat grinder, and mixed with fried onions. For juiciness, you can add a little broth to the stuffing.
As already mentioned, potato zrazy with minced meat can have any shape, this does not affect the taste. According to the first cooking option, you need to mix the prepared potato mass with the filling and cut it into cutlets. This will be the so-called “lazy" version of zraz. According to the second method, a cake is formed from the potato mass, meat filling is placed in its center and the edges are joined, forming an oblong or round pie.
Then each meal is rolled in flour and fried in a pan until a golden crust forms. Ready-made potato zrazy with minced meat can be served with sour cream or any sauce and fresh vegetable salad.
Since this dish allows many cooking options, you can try experimenting using various fillings. For example, prepare a vegetarian option - potato zrazy with cabbage. In this case, the potato dough is prepared in the same way, and for the filling you need to stew fresh or sauerkraut. You can add boiled egg or boiled mushrooms to the filling.
You can cook zrazy from potatoes with mushroom filling by stewing fresh or boiled dried mushrooms with onions. Another interesting option is the filling of stewed pickles.
A rather refined dish can be obtained by preparing potato zrazy with cheese. There are also options. The easiest way is to use hard cheese sticks as the filling. But you can go the other way and prepare a mass of grated cheese for the filling of zraz with the addition of garlic and mayonnaise passed through a press. In such a mass, you can add a boiled egg grated or finely chopped ham (sausage).
In a word, there are a lot of options for resisting a dish such as potato zrazy. You can cook this dish for lunch for at least a month every day and never repeat it.