A good fire cutlet should sprinkle with juice, exude a creamy flavor and have a crispy golden crust. Served with a side dish of mushrooms and potatoes, it can be safely considered the queen of Russian cuisine. The correct and tasty recipe for fire cutlets is not as simple as it seems: just one mistake is enough to make the dish lose its appeal. What is the technology and how to cook fire cutlets at home?
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Fire cutlets - the right classic recipe
There is not a single person who would refuse to try the delicacy that even Russian Tsars liked. Pozharsky patties are called the culinary attraction of Russia. But, despite the glory, one can’t call a beaten dish. This is largely due to a rather rigid cooking technology: a slight deviation can change the taste of the dish. But you can master the technology, most importantly, for the first time, do everything according to the rules, and then it will go like clockwork.
For the classic recipe for fire cutlets you will need:
- Chicken meat - 800 g
- Cream with a fat content of 20% - 250 ml
- Crust of white bread (preferably a loaf) - 200 g
- Large onion - 400 g
- Butter - 200 g
- Vegetable (sunflower) oil - 50 g
- Homemade breadcrumbs - 500 g
- Pepper, salt to taste.
Then the fun begins. When preparing the dish under discussion, it is important to do everything in stages, without breaking the sequence. And the first thing to do is chop the minced chicken. There is still debate: how best to cook it. You can cook fire cutlets at home in a whip, grinding minced meat in a meat grinder, but the best quality minced meat is obtained from meat cut to a size of 2-3 mm.
We start cooking:
- Soak the bread crust in cream.
- Cut the butter into small cubes (5 mm each) with a knife, remove it to freeze in the freezer.
- Finely chop the onion to the size of a rice seed and fry in butter. It must melt, become transparent.
- Mix the cooled onion, meat, bread, salt.
- Add the cubes of oil to the minced meat.
- Knead until smooth plastic consistency.
- We clean for half an hour in the refrigerator.
- We form cutlets.
- We heat the pan.
- Quickly roll the meatballs in breadcrumbs and lower them one by one into the pan.
- Fry over high heat until crust, quickly turning over.
- Preheat the oven to 200 degrees.
- We bring the cutlets to readiness within 15 minutes.
Cutlets cannot be overdried - otherwise the taste becomes different. They eat them hot with mashed potatoes, herbs, white bread.
The trick of technology! Cutlets cannot be made large, otherwise they will not be fried. Sculpt them oval in shape a little less than a palm. In this case, it is better to constantly moisten your hands with warm water, washing off excess minced meat and crackers from them. To do this, place a container of warm water next to the meat and wash your hands quickly from time to time. The process will go quickly, and the oil will not have time to melt.
Pre-revolutionary recipe for fire cutlets
Pozharsky cutlets were invented in the mid-19th century by the owners of a small inn from Torzhok Daria Pozharskaya and her husband. There is a legend that the emperor stopped by for dinner and ordered veal cutlets. Since there was no veal at that moment, innkeepers risked treating the emperor with a chicken dish. And he was delighted! Since then, the Pozharsky restaurant flourished: everyone considered it his duty to taste delicious meatballs in Torzhok, so that soon the dish became famous throughout Russia.
How did the pre-revolutionary recipe differ from the modern one?
- Daria Pozharskaya never added onions to the minced meat.
- Chicken eggs were also not part of the required ingredients.
- Stuffing was prepared exclusively by chopping.
- Spices were expensive at the time, and the patties were not seasoned with them.
- The crumb was never squeezed, but only high-quality bread was taken - dense and without voids.
For the rest, the ancient recipe for chicken fire cutlets remained unchanged.
Curious! Want to know what guests of the Pozharsky tavern liked to eat cutlets? It turns out that the most popular was the ala-bechamel sauce with porcini mushrooms. It was crushed to a state of mashed potatoes and watered them with cutlets on top.
Simple and tasty fire patties with cheese
Cheese filling, of course, does not fit into the traditional recipe, but makes the patties even tastier. In this variation, garlic can be added to the minced meat, which goes very well with cheese and adds piquancy.
How to cook such patties? We do everything exactly the same as in the basic recipe. Knead the minced meat well, but without oil. We start our "buns" with cheese of any kind, although it is better to take semi-hard cheese with a speck or dorblu with blue mold.
Bread cutlets in breadcrumbs, fry, spread on a baking sheet and bake for 15 minutes in the oven, heated to 180 degrees. You need to eat a hot dish while enjoying molten cheese.
Tender pork cutlets
Despite the fact that the classic recipe recommends using only chicken, experienced chefs do not give up trying to diversify the recipe. They mix meat of different fat content, take several varieties, and some came to the conclusion that it is impossible to think of anything better than pork: it is she who gives special tenderness, juiciness to fire cutlets.
The secret of the dish is in a special way of cooking minced meat. Before cutting it into pieces, the pork is beaten so that the layers of meat are translucent, and with a subtlety resembled writing paper. For this, cooks wrap the slices in cling film, forcefully repelling them with a culinary hammer. Pork fillet or pieces of the neck are most suitable for these purposes.
The minced meat is kneaded by adding the ingredients according to the basic recipe. Cutlets are just as well stuffed with oil, fried and cooked in the oven.
With veal and bacon
Culinary historians claim that in the legendary tavern, the dish was prepared from veal and only by pure chance, the meatballs became famous as chicken. We think that the version has a right to exist. Moreover, veal, like tender and dietary meat, is more suitable for children and people with stomach diseases. Keep the proportions the same as in the basic recipe, but instead of butter, use lard without garlic.
So, we soak the bread in cream, cut the fat with tiny cubes and freeze it in the refrigerator. We chop the veal into small "peas", mix everything with lard and bread. Now it’s important to thoroughly mix the minced meat, mold the neat cutlets and roll them in homemade breadcrumbs. Fry them until golden brown in butter, and then bring to readiness in the oven. The bacon should melt during this time, giving each piece an extraordinary juiciness. We serve cutlets with any side dish.
Tasty recipe: classic minced meatball recipe
Pozharsky cutlets from Julia Vysotskaya
Culinary fairy Julia Vysotskaya gives traditional cutlets its flavor. She urges her not to give up her favorite spices and adds a mixture of peppers to the minced meat, which she often praises for its versatility and inimitable aroma.
The difference between the recipe and the fact that, together with the meat, it pierces potatoes cooked until half cooked in a blender. This, in her opinion, makes the dish more satisfying and attractive for children. She also prefers to bring preparedness in a water bath: steamed minced meat becomes dietary and surprisingly juicy.
The recipe for fire cutlets from Ilya Lazerson
Ilya Lazerson, known for his “brutal” approach to cooking, uses only chicken breasts in fire cutlets, and increases fat content through cream 20%, which he generously pours into bread while soaking. At the same time, he recommends taking toast as the most “sticky” and suitable for minced meat.
He bakes crackers himself, using thinly sliced loafs of loaf, and then rolls cutlets into them, giving the shape of hedgehogs. Only Laserson fries the dish in a frying pan - the main cooking process takes place in the oven. The best side dish, according to the master, is mashed potatoes and thick champignon sauce.
In general, all chefs strive to adhere to the classics of the genre - meat base, breadcrumbs, chopped cubes of butter. Here are three whales of real "fire" cutlets. Try to cook them yourself, and you will discover a new taste, get acquainted with the original Russian dish.
