An old recipe for fire cutlets. Pozharsky cutlets - a festive dish of pre-revolutionary Russia

How to cook delicious meatballs

The classic step-by-step recipe for cooking chicken pozharsky cutlets at home with photo and video instructions is pre-revolutionary. Bon appetit!

2 h 30 min

190 kcal

5/5 (5)

Fire cutlets- a delicious meat dish that is worth trying at least once in a lifetime. Pozharsky cutlets are prepared from chicken, they are fragrant, with an alluring crispy crust and juicy inside.
If you decide to cook this dish, then you need to properly prepare for this issue, since the preparation of these cutlets is quite complicated. But knowing a few main secrets, you can cook them deliciously and correctly no worse than a restaurant chef.
In this article, we will look at the most important aspects of the preparation of these cutlets, which are worth focusing on. We will analyze the most correct, classic and delicious recipe for making fireball cutlets, and for a more comfortable perception, we will make it with a photo.

A little history of fire cutlets

These cutlets, as is commonly believed, originate from the first half of the 19th century. Daria Pozharskaya, a well-known innkeeper at that time, the owner of a tavern in Torzhok, which was located on the way from St. Petersburg to Moscow, was the first to cook 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 served not 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 prevented those who wished to fry fire chicken cutlets at home. This pre-revolutionary recipe was very common throughout the world, Pozharsky cutlets were loved and cooked not only in Russia, but also abroad.

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:

Secrets of cooking fire cutlets

To begin with, you should forget everything that you know about cheap ready-made minced meat and bought 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 minced meat ourselves.
Meat for Pozharsky cutlets is used exclusively chicken. Take the chicken breast and the fatty part of the chicken legs. Be sure to follow the proportions and combine breast with legs 1:1. You can find many recipes for pozharsky cutlets that use veal, but this is not a classic recipe, but just a variation of it. It is best to first master the traditional method of preparation, and only then experiment with ingredients and cooking methods.
Forget the eggs, we don't need them in this recipe. Oddly enough, but the absence of this particular ingredient, which is obligatory in the preparation of other cutlets, 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 cooking of the dish.
We will not use a purchased mixture for breading, we will prepare breadcrumbs ourselves. They are made only from white bread crusts. To make breadcrumbs easier to prepare, bread needs to be slightly frozen in the freezer, then grate it on a coarse grater.
In order for the minced meat to acquire elasticity, uniformity and softness, it must be beaten off and kneaded. We will dwell on this in more detail in the step-by-step guide for cooking fire cutlets.
Eat fire cutlets hot and fresh. This is exactly the dish that does not live to see tomorrow. The next day you will get a moist crust and rubbery flesh, which, alas, is not at all the same.

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 remove the chopped butter in the freezer. After him are crusts of white bread, from which we will make a breading.
We clean the onion from the husk and chop it as finely as possible on a cutting board (no meat grinders and blenders, during the entire preparation we grind all the ingredients exclusively with a knife).
We put the pan on high heat, cover its bottom with vegetable oil. After the pan heats up, add the chopped onion to it.
Achieve a golden crust and let the onion cool.
It's time to get to the 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 cook the minced meat.
We put the crumb of bread in a large plate or bowl, pour it with a glass of heavy cream and let the bread soak well.
Add the unsqueezed bread to the bowl where the chopped meat already lies. Following him, a completely cooled onion is sent there.
Now you need to knead and beat off the resulting mass. We mix the contents of the bowl well, 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 it will take about 10-15 minutes to beat.
We take out the butter and crusts of bread from the refrigerator. Put the cubes of butter in a bowl with minced meat. It is important to make sure that the butter does not melt in the minced meat, so all the contents in the bowl should be completely cool.
Again, mix the entire contents of the bowl and remove the cutlet mass in the refrigerator for 30 minutes. After that, it will become even more elastic due to the fact that the fat will solidify.
We rub the bread crusts on a coarse grater, after which we pour our breading onto a flat dish.
After the time has passed, we take the minced meat out of the refrigerator, wet our hands under very hot water (hot as much as you can handle), and start forming cutlets. Take as much minced meat as it fits in your palm, without a slide. We form cutlets of an oval shape.
Roll the cutlet in breadcrumbs, which will stick due to the moisture released from the cutlet, after which we put the cutlet on a cutting board. It is very important to do everything as quickly as possible, so as not to let the mass cool or heat up.
Turn on the oven to 180 degrees and let it heat up.
Before you send the cutlets to the oven, they need to be fried in a pan to get a crispy crust. You can fry them on the remains of the mixture after frying the onions. Quickly put all the cutlets on a hot frying pan and brown them on both sides for a few minutes. We achieve a hard, ruddy, crispy crust and put 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 already there. We check the readiness with a wooden stick.
We put the finished cutlets in a dish, let it cool for about 5 minutes, after which we call everyone to the table!

You can use this video

Did you know?
If this recipe seemed too complicated for you, then we advise you to look into the recipes for making cutlets easier. You will definitely enjoy the cooking recipe as well. Seafood lovers will not remain indifferent to the recipe - cutlets with squid - and vegetarians will appreciate it.

So our meatballs are ready in fire! Yes, the dish is not the easiest, you will have to spend a lot of time on it and carry it around. But if you follow all the tips outlined above, then cooking will be pleasant and interesting for any hostess. Pozharsky cutlets will be appropriate on a festive table or a dinner party, your guests, relatives and friends will be satisfied and will appreciate all your work. Serve cutlets with fried potatoes or mashed potatoes, as well as with buckwheat or rice cereals. It turns out a real yummy, which is snatched from the table in a matter of minutes. Cooking with love is a guaranteed half of the success of your dish.
Share your experience and secrets with others, together we will make this world a little tastier!

When I don’t want to turn cooking into a long, laborious process, I make fire cutlets. Their main advantage is that all stages of cooking are simplified as much as possible, and I still have time for other things, because a modern housewife, in addition to the kitchen, needs to be in time for work, and pick up the children from the garden, and for myself, my beloved, an hour give another. Below I share with you a proven and correct recipe for delicious Pozharsky chicken cutlets, which even novice inexperienced cooks can easily master.

Pozharsky cutlets recipe with step by step photos

Kitchen tools: meat grinder, frying pan, wooden spatula, small bowl, cutting board, knife, parchment and a baking sheet or heat-resistant oven container, oven.

Ingredients

How to choose the right ingredients

The main ingredient in the Pozharsky cutlets recipe is minced chicken. I strongly recommend not to buy it ready-made, but to take the meat and grind it yourself, as often those parts of animals and birds that picky housewives do not use in cooking their dishes are often added to store-bought minced meat.
Also, do not take frozen meat, because when it lies in the freezer for some time, it is difficult to determine the degree of its freshness.
Pay attention to the color and smell of the chicken. It should have a pinkish tint and not have an unpleasant odor. Keep in mind that homemade chicken is not suitable for these cutlets, as it is too tough and stringy. But homemade butter and cream, on the contrary, will come in handy. In this case, they will have a richer milky smell and taste.
Buns don't have to be fresh. you can take yesterday's, because when soaking they get wet in any case. For crackers, yesterday's loaf is also perfect.

Step by step cooking

Cooking minced meat

Cooking cutlets

Recipe video

The presented video clearly shows how to cook fireball cutlets so that they are juicy and appetizing. Also, after watching the video, you can take an idea from it on how to arrange a ready-made dish and serve it to the table.

Did you know? If you delve into history, it becomes known that fire cutlets appeared in the 19th century and were even mentioned in the works of Pushkin. Initially, they were made from veal, and only later, minced chicken meat was used in cooking.

How to decorate and serve a dish

The recipe for fire cutlets has been known for a long time. This dish is versatile and goes well with any side dish, be it rice risotto or everyday buckwheat. Alternatively, you can serve them to the table in portions with mashed potatoes neatly laid out on a plate. To make the puree look beautiful, use a round mold when laying it out.

The cutlet can be placed nearby. Also, if you wish, you can prepare a “cutlet sauce” that will harmonize with our dish and give it a special restaurant taste. I love greens, but when presenting Pozharsky cutlets, I usually don’t even use the usual parsley and dill, but you can do it entirely at your discretion.

Have you tried fire cutlets? Are you interested in my recipe? Perhaps you know how to supplement or, on the contrary, simplify it. Write in the comments your options for this dish.

Instructions for use

The famous Pozharsky cutlets became a legend already under A. S. Pushkin, who liked to visit Torzhok - in the tavern of Daria Pozharskaya, where they prepared the best cutlets in Russia from minced chicken meat, soft, juicy and with a crispy crust. After the poet glorified this delicious dish in his works, recommended friends to stay at a hotel and dine in a tavern, Torzhok turned into one of the most popular places in Russia. Pushkin wrote to his friend Sobolevsky: "At your leisure, dine with Pozharsky in Torzhok, taste fried cutlets and go light." However, many celebrities of that time stayed at the famous Pozharsky hotel - and everyone tasted Pozharsky cutlets, the recipe of which at that time was not known to anyone. We were more fortunate, we learned how to cook fire cutlets at home.

Pozharsky cutlets: the history of a colorful dish

Who invented the recipe? There are different versions of the origin of this dish, but Prince Dmitry Pozharsky, who liberated Moscow from the Polish-Lithuanian troops, has absolutely nothing to do with it. Some historians claim that once Emperor Nicholas I stayed at the Pozharsky hotel. Veal cutlets were listed in the pre-approved menu, but, to the horror of the owners of the tavern, veal was not available, and then Daria's father replaced the veal with chicken meat at his own peril and risk. The sovereign liked the tender chicken cutlets so much that he began to invite the Pozharskys to cook for the imperial court. According to another version, the secret of the cutlets was told to Daria Pozharskaya by a poor Frenchman who had nothing to pay for an overnight stay and dinner. On this recipe, the Pozharsky family made a fortune, because the cutlets have become a real culinary attraction not only for Torzhok, but for the whole of Russia. The peculiarity of Pozharsky cutlets is that they are made not from minced chicken, but from finely chopped meat, without eggs and spices, rolling semi-finished products in a special breading and frying them in butter of the highest quality. It would seem that the dish is simple and it will not be difficult to cook it, but first get acquainted with the secrets and subtleties of cooking cutlets, which were undoubtedly known to Daria Pozharskaya.

Pozharsky cutlets: what kind of meat they are made from

There is an assumption that the original recipe for cutlets included veal, but from the 18th-19th centuries they were prepared only from chicken. Experienced chefs who make fire cutlets in restaurants advise mixing meat of different fat content, using chicken breast and legs in equal proportions, because the cutlets should not be dry. So, you will need about 800 g of meat - this is without bones and skin. Whether to add skin to minced meat is a matter of taste, but in classic recipes, meat is ground without skin. Minced meat should turn out very tender and juicy, it is no coincidence that the artist Mikhailo Zhdanov wrote in his travel diary: “Very tasty meatballs are prepared in the Pozharskaya hotel; they are made from chicken and melt in your mouth: I advise everyone passing through Torzhok to eat them. A serving or two cutlets cost only a ruble.

So, the minced meat turned out to be very tender, juicy and melting in the mouth, in accordance with the pre-revolutionary recipe for Pozharsky cutlets, the meat for them was not ground, but finely chopped.

Minced meat secrets

The crumb of good quality fresh bread was necessarily added to minced chicken for pozharsky cutlets - dense, without voids and bubbles - in this case, you will need about 150 g of white sliced loaf crumb. It was soaked in a glass of heavy cream with at least 30% fat content. A bread crust weighing about 200 g was frozen in the freezer - it is needed a little later to prepare the breading.

For minced meat, onions are needed, about half as much as meat, that is, about 400 g, although Daria Pozharskaya did not add it to cutlets. The onion is cut very finely - its pieces should be the size of rice grains. It must be fried in butter or olive oil until a transparent color, making sure that the onion does not brown in any way. Never add raw onions to minced chicken - the taste of the cutlets will deteriorate significantly.

Some cooks believe that meat should be chopped with a knife or minced in a blender, not in a meat grinder, arguing that a meat grinder destroys the structure of the meat fibers and flattens them, not grinds. In their opinion, although such cutlets turn out to be soft, they do not melt in the mouth, as real firefighters should. However, other chefs believe that a blender turns meat into puree, and even under Daria Pozharskaya there was no such unit, therefore, if it is impossible to finely chop the meat with a knife, it is better to use a meat grinder. Grind the meat to the consistency of buckwheat porridge, and then you can already mix it with cooled fried onions and moist bread crumb, which should not be squeezed out. If the bread is dense enough and of high quality, it will absorb the right amount of milk and cream - no more and no less.

How to make minced meat juicy and tender

It is not enough just to mix the right ingredients, even if they are of very high quality. According to the classic recipe with a photo, minced meat is kneaded very well, as the dough is kneaded, collecting it into a lump and turning it into a layer for a long time, because the longer the minced meat is kneaded, the juicier it will turn out. In the process of kneading, minced meat should be salted and peppered to taste. Chefs also recommend wrapping the meat in cling film and hitting it with all your might on the table several times.

Minced meat is ready as soon as the mass becomes smooth, homogeneous and plastic and it will be easy to form cutlets from it. The main thing is not to overdo it in kneading, after all, this is meat, not dough, otherwise the minced meat will turn out to be liquid.

Cubes of finely chopped and pre-frozen butter are also added to the minced meat - it should be at least 150 g. After that, the minced meat does not need to be kneaded, it is enough to stir it slightly and immediately refrigerate for about half an hour. The butter should not melt, because it is the solid oil grains that give the minced meat the necessary viscosity and density.

We form and fry fire cutlets

While the minced meat freezes in the refrigerator, you can do the breading. The crust of bread frozen in the freezer is crushed on a coarse grater, since it should not be crumbs, but flakes, but small crumbs are also suitable. Pour the breading into a plate, put a bowl of hot water on the table and take the minced meat out of the refrigerator.

First you need to wet your hands, then scoop up the minced meat, quickly form a cutlet in the shape of a pie, flatten it slightly and roll in breading. If you did everything right, the cutlet will be wet and the bread flakes will stick to it without difficulty.

Ready cutlets are laid out on a dish, which is desirable to put in the refrigerator. If the minced meat becomes too soft due to melted butter, place it in the cold again. When the semi-finished products are ready, hold them for another 10 minutes in the refrigerator, this time is just enough to prepare for frying. The oven should be turned on at 180 ° C, and 3 tbsp. l. ghee or 1 tbsp. l. regular butter mixed with 2 tbsp. l. olive oil. Cutlets are laid out in a pan, lightly fried on both sides to a crust, and then transferred to a baking sheet or put in the oven right in the pan. If you like more juicy cutlets, then bake them in a pan with the rest of the oil. Pozharsky cutlets in the oven should spend from 7 to 15 minutes, it all depends on their size and the consistency of the minced meat. This technology gives the cutlets a crust and keeps tender and juicy meat inside.

Serve ready-made cutlets immediately on the table, not letting them cool, otherwise they will be tasteless, because heating this dish since the time of Daria Pozharskaya was considered a terrible culinary crime. The fact is that fresh cutlets have a crispy crust, and the flesh is very tender, but as soon as the cutlets lie down, the crust becomes very soft and moist, and the core resembles rubber.

1. The crust of bread or loaf for breading can be replaced with salted crackers, which should be broken into small pieces.

2. If you don’t have an oven, it doesn’t matter - fire cutlets after frying can be steamed under a lid over low heat or brought to readiness in a microwave oven, convection oven or slow cooker.

3. Pozharsky cutlets stuffed with cheese, bacon, ham or vegetables are extremely tasty.

4. Pozharsky cutlets can also be prepared from veal or beef, but for juiciness, add a piece of ground bacon to the minced meat.

5. If you need to cook fire cutlets in advance, then place them after frying in an airtight package and put them in the freezer. Before serving, it remains just to put them on a baking sheet or in a form without defrosting and bake for 30 minutes.

Pozharsky meatballs with cheese

Sometimes you can deviate from tradition by preparing cutlets with a delicious cheese filling. Soak 200 g of crustless white bread in half a glass of warm high-fat milk, grind 0.5 kg of chicken meat through a meat grinder, and then mix the chicken with soaked bread and 2 minced garlic cloves.

Knead the minced meat well according to all the rules, cut 150 g of cheese into slices, prepare half a glass of crushed crackers. Form a cake, place a slice of cheese in the middle, blind a cutlet with cheese filling.

Fry the cutlets in a pan in butter until golden brown, and then put them on a baking sheet and simmer for 15 minutes in the oven at a temperature of 180 ° C. Serve hot with potatoes or fresh salad, taste while the cheese is still melted!

Pozharsky cutlets with veal and pieces of bacon

Considering that before the Pozharskys, similar cutlets were made from veal, the recipe can be considered a classic.

Soak 150 g of bread in cream, cut into cubes 100 g of lard and freeze it in the refrigerator. Grind 400 g of chicken meat and 450 g of veal in a meat grinder, mix the minced meat with bacon and bread, add your favorite seasonings. Knead the minced meat well until smooth, grate the dried bun on a coarse grater or grind with a mortar - you should get small crackers.

Blind cutlets, roll in bread crumbs and fry in butter, then hold in the oven so that the cutlets reach. In this recipe, instead of butter, bacon is added to minced meat, so Pozharsky cutlets are even more tender and juicy.

A good fire cutlet should spritz with juice, exude a creamy aroma and have a crispy golden crust. Served with a side dish of mushrooms and potatoes, it can safely be considered the queen of Russian cuisine. The correct and tasty recipe for Pozharsky cutlets is not as simple as it seems: one mistake is enough for the dish to lose its attractiveness. What is the technology and how to cook fire cutlets at home?

There is not a single person who would refuse to taste a delicacy that came to the liking of even the Russian tsars. Pozharsky cutlets are called a culinary attraction of Russia. But, despite the fame, the dish cannot be called battered. This is largely due to the rather rigid cooking technology: a slight deviation can change the taste of the dish. But you can master the technology, most importantly, do everything according to the rules for the first time, and then it will go like clockwork.

For the classic fire cutlet recipe, you will need:

Chicken meat - 800 g
Cream with a fat content of 20% - 250 ml
White bread crust (better than a long 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 most interesting begins. When preparing the dish under discussion, it is important to do everything in stages, without violating the sequence. And the first thing to do is chop the minced chicken. There is still debate about how best to cook it. You can cook fire cutlets at home in a hurry, grinding the minced meat in a meat grinder, but the highest quality minced meat is obtained from meat cut to a size of 2-3 mm.

Let's start cooking:

Soak the bread crust in cream.
We cut the butter with a knife into small cubes (5 mm each), put it in the freezer to harden.
Chop the onion to the size of a grain of rice and fry in butter. It should melt, become transparent.
Mix the cooled onion, meat, bread, salt.
Add cubes of butter to the minced meat.
Knead until a plastic homogeneous consistency.
We remove for half an hour in the refrigerator.
We form cutlets.
We heat up the pan.
Quickly roll the cutlets in breadcrumbs and lower one by one into the pan.
Fry over high heat until crispy, turning quickly.
We heat the oven to 200 degrees.
We bring the cutlets to readiness for 15 minutes.

Cutlets should not be overdried - otherwise the taste becomes different. They are eaten hot with mashed potatoes, herbs, white bread.

The trick of technology! Cutlets can not be made large, otherwise they will not fry. Sculpt them into an oval shape slightly smaller than the palm of your hand. At the same time, 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 with warm water next to the minced meat and from time to time quickly wash your palms. The process will go quickly, and the butter will not have time to melt.

Pre-revolutionary recipe for fire cutlets

Pozharsky cutlets were invented in the middle of the 19th century by the owners of a small tavern from Torzhok, Daria Pozharskaya and her husband. There is a legend that the emperor stopped by for lunch and ordered veal cutlets. Since there was no veal at that moment, the innkeepers ventured to treat the emperor with a chicken dish. And he was delighted! Since then, the Pozharsky tavern has flourished: everyone considered it their duty to taste delicious cutlets in Torzhok, so the dish soon became famous throughout Russia.

How did the pre-revolutionary recipe differ from the modern one?

Daria Pozharskaya never added onions to minced meat.
Chicken eggs were also not among the required ingredients.
Minced meat was prepared exclusively by chopping.
Spices at that time were expensive, and cutlets were not seasoned with them.
The crumb was never squeezed, but only high-quality bread was taken - dense and without voids.

Otherwise, the ancient recipe for chicken pozharsky cutlets has remained unchanged.

Curious! Do you want to know what the guests of the Pozharsky tavern liked to eat cutlets with? It turns out that the most popular sauce was a la bechamel with porcini mushrooms. It was crushed to a state of puree and poured cutlets on top of it.

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 spice.

How to cook such meatballs? We do everything exactly the same as in the basic recipe. Mix well minced meat, but without oil. We stuff our “koloboks” with cheese of any kind, although it is better to take semi-hard cheese with a point or dorblu with blue mold.

Pozharsky cutlets roll in breadcrumbs, fry, put on a baking sheet and bake for 15 minutes in the oven, heated to 180 degrees. You need to eat the dish hot, enjoying the melted cheese.

Tender pork cutlets

Despite the fact that the classic recipe recommends using only chicken, experienced chefs do not stop trying to diversify the recipe. They mix meat of different fat content, take several varieties, and some came to the conclusion that nothing could be better than pork: it is she who gives special tenderness, juiciness to Pozharsky cutlets.

The secret of the dish is in a special way of preparing minced meat. Before it is cut into pieces, the pork is beaten so that the layers of meat are translucent, and the thinness resembles writing paper. To do this, cooks wrap the pieces in cling film, beating them with force with a culinary mallet. Pork fillet or neck pieces are most suitable for these purposes.

The finished minced meat is kneaded by adding the ingredients according to the basic recipe. Cutlets are stuffed with butter in the same way, fried and brought to readiness in the oven.

With veal and bacon

Culinary historians say 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 the version has the right to exist. Moreover, veal, as 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 bacon without garlic.

So, we soak the bread in cream, cut the bacon into tiny cubes and freeze it in the refrigerator. We chop the veal into small "peas", mix everything with lard and bread. Now it is important to thoroughly mix the minced meat, mold neat cutlets and roll them in homemade breadcrumbs. Fry them until golden brown in butter, and then bring them to readiness in the oven. During this time, the lard should melt, giving each piece an extraordinary juiciness. Serve cutlets with any side dish.

Fire cutlets from Yulia Vysotskaya

Culinary fairy Julia Vysotskaya gives traditional cutlets her own flavor. She urges not to give up her favorite spices and adds a mixture of peppers to the minced meat, which she often praises for their versatility and inimitable aroma.

The difference between the recipe is also that, together with meat, it punches potatoes in a blender, cooked until half cooked. This, in her opinion, makes the dish more satisfying and attractive to children. And she also prefers to bring readiness in a water bath: steamed minced meat becomes dietary and surprisingly juicy.

Recipe for fire cutlets from Ilya Lazerson

Ilya Lazerson, known for his “brutal” approach to cooking, uses only chicken breasts in Pozharsky cutlets, and increases the fat content by 20% cream, which he generously pours into bread during soaking. At the same time, he recommends taking toast bread as the most “sticky” and suitable for minced meat.

He bakes crackers himself, using thinly sliced loaf plates, and then rolls cutlets in them, giving the shape of hedgehogs. Only slightly Lazerson 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 a thick mushroom sauce.

In general, all chefs strive to adhere to the classics of the genre - meat base, breadcrumbs, finely chopped butter cubes. Here are three whales of real "pozharsky" cutlets. Try to cook them yourself, and you will discover a new taste, get acquainted with the original Russian dish.

Today we present to your attention chicken cutlets "Pozharsky" - a real royal dish that is served in restaurants. The classic recipe is complicated, and cooking will take quite a long time. However, the big, juicy, crispy cutlets deserve to be tasted! There is also a simplified version of the dish (based on ready-made minced meat), as well as a diet recipe. Let's consider them all in our article.

Cutlets "Pozharsky": the history of occurrence

In fact, this dish is not so many years old. Passing by Torzhok, on the way from Tver to Moscow on Easter, Nicholas I and his family got stuck on the road. While the servants were pushing the carriage, the emperor went to the nearest tavern and wanted to taste it. However, there was no such meat in the kitchen, and the wife of the owner of the tavern, Daria Pozharskaya, ordered the chicken to be slaughtered at her own peril and risk, since there was no shortage of them. What was the surprise of the owners of the tavern when the sovereign enthusiastically appreciated the proposed food. Moreover, the emperor ordered to put a dish with such an unusual taste to the court.

Recipe saved thanks to cookbooks

And the tavern quickly gained popularity. People visited the institution to taste delicious food, asked for the recipe. A.S. also went there. Pushkin, about which he later wrote in his works. As you can see, pre-revolutionary recipes have not sunk into oblivion thanks to cookbooks published at that time.

Before you start cooking a dish, you need to take into account some of the nuances. It is necessary to use a whole chicken carcass, but choose a heavier, fatter bird. Remove the meat from the breast and thighs in equal proportions, do not use the skin. If you want, you can make cutlets from the breast in half with veal. But this is already a variation of the classic dish.

The secret of the classic recipe

Unusually juicy and tasty cutlets are obtained because it is necessary to add pieces of frozen meat to the minced meat. Portions are formed quickly until the butter has melted, and small pieces of dried white bread are used as a breading. It is these particles that create an unsurpassed and the oil, having melted, remains inside. That is why the Pozharskaya cutlet, the classic recipe of which we will now present, should be eaten immediately after cooking. Otherwise, it will lose its characteristic, so attractive crunch.

Classic recipe: ingredients

In order to prepare the dish, we need the following products:

chicken breast meat - 400 g;
leg meat - 400 g;
white bread without crust - 150 g;
cream with a fat content of 20% - 200 g;
frozen butter - 150 g;
white bread for breading - 300 g;
bulb-turnip - 1 pc;
salt;
black pepper;
ghee or vegetable oil for frying.

Fillet cutlets always turn out somewhat dry, so we add the same weight of tender juicy leg meat to the main component.

What do you need to know before cooking?

Breading in this recipe is a technologically rather complicated process. The day before cooking, 300 grams for breading must be left in the refrigerator, removing the packaging. During this time, moisture will come out of the crumb, and the bar will dry out. When the day is up, the bar is cut into very thin slices, and then into squares, the thickness of which is only half a centimeter. It is very good to use a wavy bread knife for cutting.

Cutlet "Pozharskaya" (the classic recipe of the dish we present to your attention), contains frozen butter. they are not cut into pieces, but rubbed on a coarse grater, and then the resulting particles are again sent to the freezer. What else in the presented recipe is non-standard moves in comparison with ordinary cutlets? The bread crumb is soaked in cream, but not squeezed out, since this dairy product should be in the minced meat. Onions are cut and simmered in oil in a pan, and only then they are scrolled together with meat through a meat grinder.

Minced meat preparation method

We cut the prepared processed meat into small pieces and pass through a meat grinder along with a creamy crumb. Let the cream dissolve into the meat. Do you remember how the Pozharskaya cutlet was prepared (we are now mastering the classic recipe) in the original? The hen was still running around the yard an hour ago, and now she is already on the table in the form of an exquisite meal. That is why we scroll the meat with our own hands, without using a ready-made semi-finished product with additives. Now we pass the minced meat through the unit again, but this time we add stewed onions to the composition. It remains to mix the composition, salt and add black ground pepper. In order to make the cutlets more airy, lightly beat the minced meat with your hands and place it in the refrigerator for an hour. If you want to cook the dish quickly, you can cheat a little: send the mass to the freezer for about twenty minutes.

Formation of cutlets

Now that all the cooling periods have been met, you can mix the minced meat with ice-cold oil shavings. We repeat that everything must be done very quickly, and in order for the oil not to flow, melting from the heat of the hands, we put on thin medical gloves. Cutlet "Pozharskaya", the classic recipe of which we have practically mastered, should be the size of a chop. So, in restaurants, the dish is served on the bone along with mushrooms and baked potatoes. Formed cutlets should weigh 200 grams. We bread each serving in breadcrumbs and send it back to the refrigerator for at least 30 minutes. Now we practically know how to make cutlets according to an old Russian recipe.

Heat treatment process

In the meantime, we have time to preheat the oven to 200 degrees and even do other things, such as preparing a side dish. Send chilled blanks to a well-heated pan. The oil in it should bubble, but it should not be allowed to burn. In this process, it is necessary to feel a fine line when a well-heated pan has not yet become hot. Fry our portions on both sides until golden brown, and then send them to the oven for 8 minutes. The finished dish is served immediately, as we said, according to tradition, with mushrooms and potatoes. So, you can use fried potatoes with mushroom sauce as a side dish, or you can simmer the mushrooms in cream. Bon appetit!

diet recipe

Now we will learn how to make dietary Pozharsky cutlets. A dish according to this recipe can be prepared when there is absolutely no time for fuss with repeated freezing of ingredients. If you cook a super-diet dish, then you will have to give up the meat from the legs, replacing it with another part of the chicken fillet, and also not put oil at all, although this ingredient is already present at a minimum in the presented recipe. Also, instead of frying in a pan and languishing in the oven, steam the cutlets, and use low-fat milk instead of cream for the crumb.

Ingredients you will need to prepare this dish:

Cooking method

First, cut off the crust from the bread, crumble and fill with milk. Take a deep plate in order to beat an egg with a fork in it with two tablespoons of water. We cut the chicken fillet into pieces and scroll through a meat grinder, add bread soaked in milk, and again pass the minced meat through the kitchen unit. Squeeze out the rest of the milk with or not, in this case - it's up to you. Now it remains to salt and pepper the resulting mass, and also add butter to it (in this recipe, the butter will be softened) and mix everything thoroughly.

We immediately begin to form cutlets. They can be both oval and round - as you like. This is not a classic recipe, fantasy is allowed here. We dip the resulting semi-finished products in the egg composition, and then bread each cutlet in breadcrumbs. By the way, this ingredient can be replaced with small bread crumbs. Then we heat the frying pan poured with oil, lay out the cutlets and fry them on both sides until a golden brown crust is formed. Then, as in the case of the classic recipe, we send it to the oven preheated to 200 degrees for 8 minutes. Diet meal is ready! It can be served with sauce and vegetables. Bon appetit!