Cutlets are cooked in every family. But for some reason, for some housewives, they turn out soft and juicy, while for others - they are dry. Finding an explanation for this is not so simple, especially considering the fact that minced meat from cutlets is made from almost the same ingredients: minced meat, soaked bread, eggs, onions and spices. In our article, we will reveal all the secrets of cooking this dish. First of all, we will figure out what is best to add to the patties - protein or yolk. Recipes will be presented below.
Tips for making juicy and soft cutlets
Preparing the perfect dish is not as difficult as it might seem at first glance. Making cutlets lush, juicy and mouth-watering will help following a few simple tips:
- Before adding bread to the ground meat, the crumb must be soaked in cold water. You do not need to use milk for this, since it will not allow you to make the patties juicy.
- Bread for minced meat must certainly be wheat and stale. From fresh loaf cutlets will be sticky inside. But stale bread is able to increase products in volume.
- Cutlets without bread are dry, since it is the crumb that absorbs the meat juice released during frying. Otherwise, it will leak into the pan and burn.
- Bread in cutlets should be no more than 15-20% of the total volume of minced meat. The crumb very well absorbs oil from the pan. That is why cutlets with a high content of bread in minced meat are fatty, but not juicy.
- It is advisable not to grate the onion, but to grind it with a knife. Cutlets will turn out tastier.
- Most cutlet recipes indicate eggs. This is not a required ingredient in a meal. It is possible to add protein or yolk separately to minced meat for cutlets. But you need to understand that the taste and calorie content of such products will be different.
Why is minced egg added?
Many housewives believe that this ingredient in cutlets is a must. It is believed that without it, finished products will immediately fall apart in a pan. The result is not a ruddy and delicious cutlet, but just meat porridge.
That's just professional chefs have long abandoned this ingredient in cutlets. And there is a simple explanation for this. The fact is that an egg binds or glues pieces of meat in minced meat, but it also makes products unnecessarily resilient, stiff. Yes, cutlets never really fall apart when frying. But their taste qualities will also suffer from such an ingredient.
You can also add the yolk or protein separately to the cutlets. But whether they fall apart or not in a pan depends not only on the egg, but also on the other ingredients in the minced meat.
What is better to add to cutlets: protein or yolk?
Now it became clear that the egg is not the main ingredient of minced meat. It is because of it that finished products become stiff. So what to add to the patties - protein or yolk? Tips on this are as follows:
- That protein is the connecting element in the egg. He does not allow the finished product to fall apart during its frying in a pan. Therefore, if you put protein in cutlets, the same thing will happen as when adding a whole egg. Products will not fall apart, but also unlikely to be soft.
- So that when adding protein to the minced meat, the patties are magnificent, it must first be beaten with a mixer with a pinch of salt.
- The yolk will make the patties softer. However, he will not be able to bind all the components of the stuffing in the way the protein does. And in some books on home economics you can find information that yolks can not be added to cutlets. And there are reasons for this.
Why can’t you add yolk to the stuffing?
To refuse this ingredient in cutlets is called by nutritionists. They consider: when deciding what to add protein or yolk to cutlets, it is better to give preference to the first ingredient. Perhaps the dish will turn out not so tender, but less caloric.
Recent nutritional studies have shown that yolk is unhealthy. It contains too much cholesterol, which disrupts the cardiovascular system, and this is fraught with heart attacks and strokes. But egg white, by contrast, is considered useful because it is a dietary product. That is why adding yolk to the minced meat is not recommended.
Whipped Protein Cutlets Recipe
To add yolk to the minced meat is a simple matter. It is enough to separate the squirrels from the egg in a separate bowl. But the yolk can be immediately put in the minced meat and mix it. But cutlets with whipped protein are less nutritious. Moreover, preparing them is also quite simple:
- Grind 1 kg of meat (pork, beef, chicken, turkey).
- Finely chop the medium-sized onion (2 pcs.) With a knife. Add it to the minced meat.
- Break the crumb (100 g) with your hands and pour water or milk (80 ml). Leave for 5 minutes to let the bread soften.
- Add salt, pepper, squeezed crumb. Knead the minced meat to make it sticky and uniform.
- Beat egg whites (2 pcs.) With a pinch of salt until lush foam. With a spatula, add the whipped mass to the minced meat and gently mix it.
- Form cutlets from minced meat. Bread them and fry them in a pan with a thick bottom on both sides.
What to add to cutlets - protein or yolk, a matter of taste. Some people like it when finished products are lush, while others are softer and more tender. The final choice is up to the hostess.
How to replace an egg in minced meat?
To cutlets do not fall apart in a pan, the following ingredients can be added to the chopped meat:
- pre-soaked and well wrung crumb of white bread;
- grated raw potatoes (1 tuber per 1 kg of meat);
- boiled potato puree;
- starch diluted in a small amount of water (10 g per 1 kg of minced meat);
- semolina;
- oatmeal swollen in boiling water.
Thus, both separately and together, protein or yolk is not necessary to add to cutlets. These ingredients can easily be replaced with minced meat. The dish from this will turn out no less tasty.
Soviet cutlets in accordance with GOST
In the USSR, such cutlets were called "Special". They were prepared completely without eggs using the following technology:
- Prepare 550 g of ground beef and 250 g of pork.
- Dry the crumb of a wheat loaf (150 g) and grind it in a blender into crumbs. Soaked bread can also be used.
- Combine minced meat, bread crumbs, salt (10 g) and black pepper (1 g) in a deep bowl. Pour the ingredients with ice water (200 ml).
- Knead the minced meat thoroughly to make it sticky. You can beat it several times on the bottom of the bowl.
- With wet hands, form cutlets weighing 90 g each. Roll them in breadcrumbs on all sides and fry in vegetable oil until golden brown.
- Put ready cutlets on a baking sheet and send it to the oven preheated to 200 ° C for twenty minutes.
Cutlets with potatoes without eggs
In the next cooking option, you do not need to add protein or yolk to the patties. The recipe suggests replacing the egg with raw potatoes. Step by step the cooking process can be represented as follows:
- Make minced meat from 250 g of beef and 250 g of pork.
- Chop the onion in a blender and knife.
- Grate the potatoes on a fine grater.
- Soak bread (70 g) for 10 minutes, squeeze it and add to minced meat with onions and potatoes. Grinding the ingredients separately is not necessary at all. You can twist meat, and onions, and potatoes, and squeezed bread in a meat grinder.
- Salt the minced meat and pepper. Optionally add parsley or dill to it.
- Form cutlets with your hands, using breadcrumbs for this. Fry products in sunflower oil until tender or lightly brown them, and then bake them completely in the oven.