Pan Fried Meat Cutlets

My hubby's cousin had a sweet lil daughter few months ago and now she is back home with the sweetheart and is busy settling down. Poor thing, she has been away for a few months and so it must be extremely difficult getting things in order. So I thought why not cook up a few goodies for her so she doesn't have to do much cooking next week.

And so I thought cutlets would be a good idea. Cutlet is such a common snack in India that almost anybody would know how to make it. But beef and mutton cutlets are a familiar sight mostly in Kerala given the largely vegetarian  population of other places in India.

Back home, my mom would always stock up meat (beef) cutlets in her freezer because we used to have unexpected guests all the time and cutlets always helped make up for the absence of any other non-veg dish. My sister and I used to polish off a good number of them at a sitting. Cutlets are usually deep fried, but I don't use that method. I only shallow fry them with drizzles of oil on a non-stick pan. You can also grill them.

Anyways, cutlets are a great snack when you have company or otherwise. You might think that the procedure is all too long and painful but in reality it is not so.

This definitely is a winner with young and old alike. Hope you enjoy it.

Ingredients

Beef - 1/2 kg

Vinegar - 1 to 1 1/2 tbsp

Water - 1/4 to 1/2 cup

Big onion - 2 (big)

Ginger - 1/2 inch piece

Garlic - 2 cloves (optional)

Green chilli - 2 to 3

Pepper - 3/4 tsp (adjust as per spice tolerance)

Potato - 2 (big; boiled & mashed)

Curry leaves

Egg - 2 (beaten)

Breadcrumbs

Oil

Method

Boil and cook the beef in a pressure cooker along with a pinch of salt, vinegar and water till done. Let all the water evaporate.

Finely chop ginger, garlic, green chillies and onions. Also, mince the cooked beef and keep aside.

Heat oil in a wok. Add finely chopped ginger, garlic, green chillies, onions and curry leaves and saut'e till onions become soft, transparent and reduces in quantity. Into this, add the minced beef along with pepper and salt (be careful while adding salt as the beef has already been cooked with a little salt) and saut'e till browned here and there. Make sure all the moisture evaporates, but be careful not to dry out the mixture too much. Check for salt at this time. Keep this mixture aside to cool down. Once cooled, add the mashed potato and combine well. Now, take small amounts of this mixture and shape it into whatever shape you want, dip in beaten egg, roll in breadcrumbs and shallow fry/deep fry or grill. Garnish with onion rings.

Notes: You can simply fry the cutlets just by dipping it in the egg batter and omit the breadcrumbs. It tastes good this way too.

You can use the same recipe for chicken cutlets too. I have not used garam masala for the above recipe, but you could add some while making chicken cutlets.

Source: My Mom