A little history of Pozharsky cutlets
These cutlets are generally believed to have their origins in the first half of the 19th century. The then famous innkeeper Daria Pozharskaya, the owner of a tavern in Torzhok, which was located on the way from St. Petersburg to Moscow, was the first to prepare them. These cutlets glorified the tavern and Daria herself, after which a real pilgrimage to this place began. Guests came from all over the area, even from other countries came to taste these wonderful crispy cutlets. The original recipe became more and more famous, cutlets were no longer served only in Daria's tavern, but also in others, as well as in the best restaurants in the country. Gradually, the recipe became popular, and nothing stopped those who wanted to fry Pozharsky chicken cutlets at home. This pre-revolutionary recipe was very widespread throughout the world; Pozharsky cutlets were loved and prepared not only in Russia, but also abroad.
With veal and bacon
Culinary historians claim that in the legendary tavern the dish was prepared from veal and it was only by pure chance that the cutlets became famous as chicken cutlets. We think that this version has a right to exist. Moreover, veal, as a 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, soak the bread in cream, cut the bacon into tiny cubes and freeze it in the refrigerator. Chop the veal into small “peas”, mix everything with lard and bread
Now it is important to thoroughly mix the minced meat, form neat cutlets and roll them in homemade breadcrumbs. Fry them until golden brown in butter, and then finish them in the oven.
During this time, the bacon should melt, giving each piece an extraordinary juiciness. Serve cutlets with any side dish.
What you need to know before cooking
Kitchen appliances and utensils: bowl for kneading minced meat, stove, frying pan, oven, baking sheet, wooden spatula.
Ingredients:
Chicken meat | 800 g |
Heavy cream | 1 tbsp. |
Crumb of white bread | 150 g |
Crusts of white bread | 200 g |
Onion | 400 g |
Butter | For the filling |
Olive or vegetable oil | For frying |
Ground black pepper | Taste |
Salt | Taste |
Secrets of cooking Pozharsky cutlets
- First, you should forget everything you know about cheap ready-made minced meat and purchased breadcrumbs. Semi-finished products are a good thing, they often save us from routine and wasting precious time when preparing various dishes, but they will not help us here. We will make the minced meat ourselves.
- The meat for Pozharsky cutlets is exclusively chicken. Take chicken breast and the fatty part of chicken legs. Be sure to follow the proportions and combine the breast with the legs 1:1 . You can find many recipes for Pozharsky cutlets that use veal, but this is not a classic recipe, just a variation of it. It is best to master the traditional cooking method first and then experiment with ingredients and cooking techniques.
- Forget about eggs, we don't need them in this recipe. Oddly enough, the absence of precisely this essential ingredient in the preparation of other cutlets is what makes Pozharsky cutlets special and unique in taste.
- Follow the proportions. The proportions of the classic recipe will be indicated here; it is not recommended to change them, especially at first, until you master the traditional preparation of the dish.
- We will not use a store-bought mixture for breading; we will prepare our own breadcrumbs. They are prepared only from white bread crusts. To make it easier to prepare breadcrumbs, freeze the bread a little in the freezer and then grate it on a coarse grater.
- In order for the minced meat to acquire elasticity, uniformity and softness, it must be beaten and kneaded. We will dwell on this in more detail in the step-by-step guide for preparing Pozharsky cutlets.
- Eat Pozharsky cutlets hot and fresh. This is exactly the dish that doesn't live to see tomorrow. The next day you will get a moist crust and rubbery pulp, and this, alas, is not the same at all.
With veal and bacon
Culinary historians claim that in the legendary tavern the dish was prepared from veal and it was only by pure chance that the cutlets became famous as chicken cutlets. We think that this version has a right to exist. Moreover, veal, as a 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, soak the bread in cream, cut the bacon into tiny cubes and freeze it in the refrigerator. Chop the veal into small “peas”, mix everything with lard and bread
Now it is important to thoroughly mix the minced meat, form neat cutlets and roll them in homemade breadcrumbs. Fry them until golden brown in butter, and then finish them in the oven.
During this time, the bacon should melt, giving each piece an extraordinary juiciness. Serve cutlets with any side dish.
Let's start cooking
- First of all, you need to finely chop the butter into cubes about half a centimeter in size, after which we put the chopped butter in the freezer. Following this are crusts of white bread, from which we will make the breading.
- We peel the onion and chop it as finely as possible on a cutting board (no meat grinders or blenders; during the entire preparation we chop all the ingredients exclusively with a knife).
- Place the frying pan over high heat and coat the bottom with vegetable oil. Once the pan is hot, add the chopped onion.
- We achieve a golden crust and let the onion cool.
- It's time to start eating meat. We take chicken legs and breast, peel them, finely chop the meat on a cutting board and put everything in a bowl where we will prepare the minced meat.
- Place the bread crumb in a large plate or bowl, pour a glass of heavy cream over it and let the bread soak thoroughly.
- Add the unsqueezed bread to the bowl that already contains the chopped meat. Following this, the completely cooled onion is sent there.
- Now you need to knead and beat the resulting mass. Mix the contents of the bowl thoroughly, tear off small pieces and throw them back into the bowl from a distance of 30 cm. We must achieve elasticity and uniformity from the minced meat, so we will have to beat it for about 10-15 minutes.
- Take the butter and crusts of bread out of the refrigerator. Place the butter cubes in a bowl with the minced meat. It is important to ensure that the butter does not melt in the minced meat, so the entire contents in the bowl must be completely cooled.
- Mix the entire contents of the bowl again and put the cutlet mass in the refrigerator for 30 minutes. After this, it will become even more elastic due to the fact that the fat will solidify.
- We grate the bread crusts on a coarse grater, then pour our breading onto a flat dish.
- After the time has passed, take the minced meat out of the refrigerator, wet your hands under very hot water (as hot as you can stand), and begin to form the cutlets. Take as much minced meat as fits in your palm, without a slide. Form oval-shaped cutlets.
- Roll the cutlet in breadcrumbs, which will stick due to the moisture released from the cutlet, then place the cutlet on a cutting board. It is very important to do everything as quickly as possible so as not to allow the mass to cool or heat up.
- Turn on the oven to 180 degrees and leave it to heat up.
- Before putting the cutlets in the oven, they need to be fried in a frying pan to get a crispy crust. You can fry them using the leftover mixture after frying the onions. Quickly place all the cutlets on a hot frying pan and brown them on both sides for a few minutes. We achieve a hard, golden brown, crispy crust and place all the cutlets on a baking sheet covered with foil or baking paper.
- We send our cutlets to a heated oven and bring them to readiness there. Check readiness with a wooden stick.
- Place the finished cutlets in a dish, let cool for about 5 minutes, then call everyone to the table!
Pozharsky cutlets: classic recipe with step-by-step photos
Anyone who decides to cook Pozharsky cutlets for the first time is probably looking for the right and tasty classic recipe with step-by-step photos. The correct recipe usually means the first and authentic pre-revolutionary and classic recipe for Pozharsky cutlets, which has survived to this day.
Today, there is still disagreement in the culinary community about which of the recipes for Pozharsky cutlets is the most correct and correct. Be that as it may, to find out it you need to take an excursion into the past and remember the history of Pozharsky cutlets.
It is not known exactly who and when invented Pozharsky cutlets, and there are different versions about this, many of which are shrouded in mystery and legends. One of the legends says that once during a trip, the carriage of Tsar Alexander the First broke down in the city of Ostashkov.
Deciding to refresh himself, he visited a local tavern and asked to bring him the veal cutlets that he loved so much. But, as luck would have it, there was no veal in the tavern, but the resourceful hostess served surprisingly juicy cutlets, generously sprinkled with breadcrumbs, to the king’s table.
The Tsar liked them so much that he named them Pozharsky, in honor of the innkeeper and his wife.
The cutlets themselves were included in the royal menu under the name “cutlets ala Pozharsky”. According to another version, the cutlets were named after Prince Pozharsky, who loved to cook them, but this version subsequently suffered a lot of criticism.
Now let's look at how
Pozharsky cutlets are prepared - a classic recipe with step-by-step photos .
Ingredients:
- Loaf - 350 gr., (3-4 slices for minced meat, the rest for breading),
- Minced chicken - 700-800 gr.,
- Onion - 1 pc.,
- Milk or cream - 100 ml.,
- Butter - 50 gr. for minced meat and about 100 gr. for frying.
- Egg - 1 pc.,
- Salt - to taste
- Ground black pepper - a pinch
Pozharsky cutlets - a classic recipe
Cooking cutlets begins with preparing the loaf. For minced cutlets, the loaf will need to be soft and wet; for breading, on the contrary, it will need to be dried. Place the required amount of loaf for the cutlet mass on a plate and add milk or cream.
For breading, cut the loaf into small cubes.
Place them in a bowl. Microwave on medium power for 2 minutes. During this time, the loaf dried out, but not very much. Mix it with your hands and microwave for another 1 minute. As they cool, the crackers will lose any remaining moisture and become completely crispy.
Peel the onion. Cut into small cubes.
Melt 30 grams in a frying pan. butter. Fry onions on it.
Place the minced chicken into a convenient bowl. If the minced meat is frozen, it is advisable that it defrost at room temperature on its own.
Place fried onions in a bowl with minced chicken.
Using your hands, crumble the loaf soaked in milk (cream) into a bowl with meat.
Classic Pozharsky cutlets are always prepared with the addition of butter to the minced meat, which is why they turn out so juicy. You can add soft butter or frozen butter, in which case it is grated on a fine grater and added to the minced meat.
Beat in the egg.
The minced meat for Pozharsky cutlets is almost ready. All that remains is to add salt and lightly season with ground black pepper. Please note that classic Pozharsky cutlets should have a creamy flavor, and in order not to overpower it, apart from a small amount of black pepper, no spices are added to them.
Knead the minced meat for the cutlets with your hands for 3-4 minutes. While stirring, you can beat it with your hands, so the cutlet mass is better saturated with oxygen and becomes more airy.
After this, place the minced meat for Pozharsky cutlets in the refrigerator for 30 minutes.
The fact is that the cutlet mass, after cooling, becomes more plastic and viscous, and as a result of this, the cutlets keep their shape well during the frying process.
As a breading, you can use both homemade crackers from a dried loaf, and crumbs from them. To obtain the breading, place the crackers into a blender bowl. Grind them until crumbly.
Pozharsky cutlets according to the classic recipe have an oval shape. Wet your hands with water so that the minced meat does not stick to them during modeling. Roll into an oval patty. Roll it in breadcrumbs.
Using this principle, make the rest of the Pozharsky cutlets. The next stage is frying the cutlets. Unlike ordinary homemade meat cutlets, classic Pozharsky cutlets are fried in butter with the addition of vegetable oil. Melt butter in a hot frying pan.
Place the cutlets on it.
Literally immediately, before the cutlets begin to burn, add a little vegetable oil. Fry Pozharsky cutlets on both sides over low heat.
Approximately 3 minutes on each side. Next, place the Pozharsky cutlets on a baking sheet covered with parchment and place in the oven for 15-20 minutes, the temperature of which is 180C. Pozharsky cutlets breaded with crackers are prepared (or rather fried) in the same way. Roll the formed minced chicken cutlet in breadcrumbs.
In the photo you see what Pozharsky cutlets look like in the first and second cooking options.
Like other types of cutlets, Pozharsky cutlets, a step-by-step recipe with photos of which we reviewed, are served hot as an addition to the main side dish. A classic of the genre is mashed potatoes with butter and milk.
I also recommend making chicken cutlets with cheese. Enjoy your meal. I will be glad if this recipe for Pozharsky cutlets is useful to you.
Fire cutlets. Photo
- Servings: 5
- Cooking time: 40 Min
- Servings: 4
- Cooking time: 40 Min
- Servings: 3
- Cooking time: 20 Min
- Servings: 4
- Cooking time: 60 Min
- Servings: 2
- Cooking time: 30 Min
Source: https://www.kushat.net/recipe-items/pozharskie-kotlety-klassicheskij-recept-s-poshagovymi-foto/
You can use this video recipe
Did you know? If this recipe seemed too complicated for you, then we advise you to look at recipes for making easier cutlets.
You will definitely love the recipe for minced pork cutlets, as well as classic minced meat cutlets. Seafood lovers will not remain indifferent to the recipe for cutlets with squid, and vegetarians will appreciate chickpea cutlets. Our pozharsky cutlets are ready! Yes, the dish is not the easiest, you will have to devote a lot of time and fuss to it. But if you follow all the tips outlined above, then cooking will be enjoyable and interesting for any housewife. Pozharsky-style cutlets will be appropriate on a festive table or dinner party; your guests, family and friends will be pleased and will appreciate all your efforts. Serve the cutlets with fried potatoes or mashed potatoes, as well as with buckwheat or rice porridge. The result is a real yummy dish that will be snatched up from the table in a matter of minutes. Cook with love - this is a guaranteed half of the success of your dish. Share your experiences and secrets with others, together we will make this world a little tastier!
Other cutlet recipes
Ground beef cutlets Cutlet sauce Cutlets with oatmeal Chopped pork cutlets Cutlets with gravy Bon appetit!
Reader reviews
Nobody has written anything yet. Be the first!
3.Simple and delicious Pozharsky cutlets with cheese
The cheese filling, of course, does not fit into the traditional recipe, but it makes the cutlets even tastier. In this variation, you can add garlic to the minced meat, which goes very well with cheese and adds piquancy.
How to cook such cutlets? We do everything exactly the same as in the basic recipe.
Mix the minced meat well, but without oil. We fill our “koloboks” with any type of cheese, although it is better to take semi-hard cheese with a sharp edge or dorblu with blue mold.
Roll Pozharsky cutlets in breadcrumbs, fry, place on a baking sheet and bake for 15 minutes in an oven preheated to 180 degrees.
The dish should be eaten hot, enjoying the melted cheese.