The minced meat falls apart when fried. Why do cutlets fall apart when frying and how to avoid it. What to add to cutlets instead of eggs

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The minced meat falls apart when fried. Why do cutlets fall apart when frying and how to avoid it. What to add to cutlets instead of eggs

Cutlets are loved by everyone who does not shy away from meat dishes. The housewives also respect them very much: if you fry a bigger pot, the family is provided with dinner for a week. However, cooking can also be frustrating. Even experienced cooks sometimes wonder why cutlets fall apart when fried. For novice housewives, an unsuccessful first experiment may even scare them away from the idea of delighting their loved ones with this dish. Meanwhile, difficulties can be overcome, and problems can be solved.

Three reasons why cutlets fall apart when fried

Each specific case may have its own details. However, according to the main factors, all situations can be divided into three groups.

The cutlets are too big. They simply break under their own weight.
The pan was not hot enough. Or you were in a hurry to turn it over, and the crust on the bottom side did not have time to set well.
But the main reason why cutlets fall apart during frying may be the incorrect consistency of the minced meat. Most often it is too liquid, although products can fall apart if they are too dry.

All these negative factors are easily eliminated. Although, to avoid disappointment, it is better not to make mistakes from the very beginning. This means you need to make the right stuffing.

A competent approach to minced meat

To prevent the cutlets from falling apart, you need to make the base for them yourself. Store-bought mince is always a roulette wheel, and most often the number that comes up in it is not yours. It is better to take chilled meat for minced meat. Frozen is not suitable in any case, but the freshest is still better to put in the refrigerator for an hour.

The next condition for successful preparation is diligent hand kneading. The minced meat should be as uniform as possible. When you are satisfied with its consistency, put the base in a bag and smack it hard on the table several times. The air will be knocked out of the minced meat, which also contributes to the collapse.

Classic ones are made with the addition of white bread. And it must be dry, otherwise it can also lead to the disintegration of the final product. Contrary to popular belief, the loaf should be soaked not in milk, but in warm water. Before placing it in it, the crusts are cut off from the bread.

Conflicting opinions about eggs

The classic cutlet recipe includes eggs. Approximately one egg per half kilo of base. However, this point is controversial. Firstly, they can liquefy the minced meat even more if the meat is “wet”. And then you will have to thicken it with something. Secondly, there is no unity of opinion on whether to fully use them. Some chefs recommend using only yolks - they say they make the minced meat more elastic, while maintaining fluffiness and airiness. Others insist on using proteins alone - they are the ones that have astringent properties. Still others even consider minced eggs unnecessary. To decide who to join, try cooking cutlets according to all recipes and choose according to your taste.

Fillers for minced meat

What to add to the minced meat is up to the owner. Most cooks stick to the classic recipe. But if your cutlets stubbornly fall apart, try adding semolina to the base (a heaping spoonful per kilogram of minced meat), knead and leave for a quarter of an hour so that the cereal swells. A proven method: the cutlets will remain whole.

Grated fresh potatoes can be a very good astringent for minced meat. When it is added, there is no need for both eggs and bread, and the dish turns out fluffy, but dense.

When the question of why cutlets fall apart during frying loses its relevance for you, you can experiment with other fillers. Other introduced vegetables can add their own flavor: cabbage, carrots, zucchini. And to add airiness and piquancy, you can put a piece of butter or processed cheese inside the cutlet. Only breadcrumbs in this case should be used twice, with intermediate dipping of the cutlet into egg leison. Otherwise, the filling may leak out, frying its “shell” to the pan and robbing you of pleasure.

Proper frying

Cutlets can also fall apart due to mistakes at the final stage of cooking. Following the simplest rules will save you from grief.

The frying pan should be thick-bottomed.
Forget about the lid when frying cutlets - the container must always be open.
Not a lot of oil is poured. If the mince is correct and the cutlets are still falling apart, you most likely overfilled it.
You need to heat the pan until it bubbles, but without letting the oil smoke.
Make the heat high enough to create a crust within a minute.
You need to turn it over carefully, preferably with two tools.

According to the rules, a high fire is maintained under the frying pan until a “shell” is obtained from below. Then it is slightly muffled and the cutlet is left on the first side until the top turns gray - this means that the lower half is already completely ready. With the second side, manipulations are carried out according to the same rules.

Very important: boning

Most often, housewives use breadcrumbs, both white and rye, to roll cutlets. However, if the patties continue to fall apart, try replacing them with flour to draw out excess moisture. Although, of course, you won’t get a crispy crust with flour.

Well, if the problem of why cutlets fall apart when fried has long been successfully solved, try pampering yourself with more exotic options. Cutlets rolled in finely crushed nuts are very tasty. And even more interesting would be a dish in which ground sesame was used for breading.

Traditionally, it was believed that the shape of the cutlets was preserved during heat treatment by adding eggs to the minced meat. Of course, no one is going to argue with this statement, but still, some wisdom will help make fried cutlets whole and beautiful even without eggs.

Cooking delicious cutlets

Sometimes the cutlets simply fall apart in the frying pan when frying, or, on the contrary, they come out tough and slightly dry, with a grayish color. Of course, you want to avoid both and prepare a truly appetizing dish so that it not only tastes amazing but also looks beautiful.

How to achieve this?

If your cutlets fall apart in a frying pan or, on the contrary, they turn out hard and dry, perhaps it’s all about the proportions of the minced meat. So, for one kilogram of any boneless meat you should add 250 grams of stale white bread. The bread must first be soaked in 300 ml of water, or milk can be used instead of water. You should also add onions, 20 g of salt, and ground black pepper to taste and your desire.
Quite often, many housewives add eggs to the minced meat. This doesn't always come in handy. Both meat and eggs contain a lot of protein, and when frying, protein absorbs moisture and coagulates. The minced meat itself shrinks quite significantly, releasing juice, and therefore the cutlets turn out hard and dry.
Eggs should be added when the minced meat is runny. If the minced meat is completely normal in consistency, you should not add eggs. It is on this basis that it is best to soak bread not in milk (after all, there is also enough protein there), but simply in water.
While you pass the meat through the meat grinder, its temperature rises slightly (by three to five degrees). An increase in temperature greatly contributes to the more successful development of various microorganisms. And in order for the minced meat to not have such a high temperature after leaving the meat grinder, the piece of meat must be pre-cooled before processing.
Bread should be added to the minced meat when it is stale and without burnt crusts. After you have soaked the bread in milk or water for 10-15 minutes, it will retain moisture well. You should not squeeze a piece of bread too much after soaking it, otherwise it will no longer be distributed evenly in the minced meat and this will accordingly deprive the minced meat of the necessary juiciness. But if the bread is soft or still fresh, this leads to the cutlet mass becoming sticky.
The sharpness of the knives of your meat grinder largely affects the juiciness of the cutlets. So, dull knives in a meat grinder will not cut meat, but will only mash it, as a result of which the meat will lose its juiciness.
Minced cutlets cooked with raw onions and garlic should be fried immediately, i.e. immediately after its preparation. And in order for your cutlets to be much tastier and more tender, just before breading them in breadcrumbs, you should moisten them with broth.

What should you do to prevent the cutlets from falling apart when frying?

Before frying, warm the pan well and only after that pour oil on it. This applies to simple cookware without a non-stick layer.
Seal the minced meat with an egg. Protein perfectly cements the ingredients together, preventing them from falling apart. As the cutlet fries, it only becomes stronger and there will be no embarrassment.
If we don’t add an egg, then we’ll have to replace it with something. You can grate a little cheese or add a spoonful of mayonnaise to the minced meat.
When frying lean cutlets without meat, it is best to add a spoonful of potato starch to the minced meat.
Additional breading will also help keep the cutlet's shape intact. A cutlet rolled in breadcrumbs or semolina will be easier to fry and will not fall apart when turned over.
If your minced meat is very tender, for example, shrimp or chicken with cream, then double breading. To do this, you need to break an egg into one bowl and beat it into foam with a little salt, and pour ground crackers into the second. First we bathe the minced lump in beaten egg and then roll it in breadcrumbs. Then again into the egg, then the crackers and immediately into a well-heated frying pan directly into the oil. Fry quickly on both sides. This breading will hold even the most capricious minced meat.
Well, if the minced meat for the cutlets turns out to be completely liquid, do not bother with the breading - the cutlet will still fall apart. To cook excellent cutlets and not get upset, simply heat a frying pan and, using a medium-sized spoon, carefully place the minced meat for frying. The cutlets will turn out slightly similar to pancakes, but they will definitely not fall apart when frying.

Something like that. Knead the minced meat, feel free to fry the cutlets, they will definitely not fall apart now, because we have followed all the technological bells and whistles. Bon appetit!

Cutlet recipe for beginners

The first thing you should pay attention to when preparing minced meat is its composition, or rather the proportions of fatty and lean meat. To prevent the cutlets from falling apart, you need to take one part of beef or lean pork and mix it with a quarter of the volume of fatty meat. This way, less fat will melt during frying and the shape of the cutlets will be more accurate.
The meat needs to be rolled through a meat grinder and “pounded” so that the cutlets do not fall apart during frying. To do this, take a handful of minced meat and sharply throw it to the bottom of the bowl, repeat this several times.
Next, you need to leave the white bread to soak in milk for 20 minutes, then take it out, squeeze it out and add it to the minced meat. The main thing is not to overdo it; too much bread in the minced meat, on the contrary, will cause the cutlets to crumble.
To ensure that the cutlets do not fall apart, you can add mashed potatoes and a couple of cabbage leaves to the resulting minced meat. Due to the starch contained in potatoes, the cutlets will retain their shape, and cabbage will make them more tender and juicy.
Now you can add a couple of eggs, salt, chopped onion, pepper to taste, mix thoroughly, roll in breading and place on a hot frying pan.

What to add to cutlets instead of eggs?

If you started making cutlets, but at the very last moment you discovered that there are no eggs in the refrigerator, don’t worry. I know how to keep your cutlets from falling apart in the pan. Instead of eggs, you can add a little semolina to the cutlet mass, at the rate of two tablespoons per half kilogram. After you mix the cauldron mixture well, let it stand for 10 minutes so that the semolina swells slightly.

It will work out ideally if you add less white bread to the cutlets, taking into account the amount of semolina added. Fry the cutlets in the usual way. When I fried these cutlets, they turned out very tasty and juicy, and most importantly, they did not fall apart during frying.

Sometimes they simply fall apart in a frying pan when frying, or, on the contrary, they come out hard and slightly overdried, with a grayish color. Of course, you want to avoid both and prepare a truly appetizing dish so that it not only tastes amazing but also looks beautiful. How to achieve this?

Cooking delicious cutlets

If your cutlets fall apart in a frying pan or, on the contrary, they turn out hard and dry, perhaps it’s all a matter of proportions. So, for one kilogram of any boneless meat you should add 250 grams of stale white bread. The bread must first be soaked in 300 ml of water, or milk can be used instead of water. You should also add onions, 20 g of salt, and ground black pepper to taste and your desire.

Quite often, many housewives add eggs to the minced meat. This doesn't always come in handy. Both meat and meat contain a lot of protein, and when frying, protein absorbs moisture and coagulates. At the same time, the minced meat itself shrinks quite significantly, releasing juice and it is from this that the cutlets turn out to be tough and dry.

should be added when the minced meat turns out watery. If the minced meat is completely normal in consistency, you should not add eggs. It is on this basis that it is best to soak bread not in milk (after all, there is also enough protein there), but simply in water.
While you pass the meat through its temperature, it increases slightly (by three to five degrees). An increase in temperature greatly contributes to the more successful development of various microorganisms. And in order for the minced meat to not have such a high temperature after leaving the meat grinder, the piece of meat must be pre-cooled before processing.

Bread should be added to the minced meat when it is stale and without burnt crusts. After you have soaked the bread in milk or water for 10-15 minutes, it will retain moisture well. You should not squeeze a piece of bread too much after soaking it, otherwise it will no longer be distributed evenly in the minced meat and this will accordingly deprive the minced meat of the necessary juiciness. But if the bread is soft or still fresh, this leads to the cutlet mass becoming sticky.

The sharpness of the knives of your meat grinder largely affects the juiciness of the cutlets. So, dull knives in a meat grinder will not cut meat, but will only mash it, as a result of which the meat will lose its juiciness.

Minced cutlets cooked with raw onions and garlic should be fried immediately, i.e. immediately after its preparation. And in order for your cutlets to be much tastier and more tender, just before

How to cook cutlets so they don't fall apart

The first thing you should pay attention to when preparing minced meat is its composition, or rather the proportions of fatty and lean meat. To prevent the cutlets from falling apart, you need to take one part of beef or lean pork and mix it with a quarter of the volume of fatty meat. This way, less fat will melt during frying and the shape of the cutlets will be more accurate.

The meat needs to be rolled through a meat grinder and “pounded” so that the cutlets do not fall apart during frying. To do this, take a handful of minced meat and sharply throw it to the bottom of the bowl, repeat this several times.

Next, you need to leave the white bread to soak in milk for 20 minutes, then take it out, squeeze it out and add it to the minced meat. The main thing is not to overdo it; too much bread in the minced meat, on the contrary, will cause the cutlets to crumble.

To ensure that the cutlets do not fall apart, you can add mashed potatoes and a couple of cabbage leaves to the resulting minced meat. Due to the starch contained in potatoes, the cutlets will retain their shape, and cabbage will make them more tender and juicy.

Now you can add a couple of eggs, salt, chopped onion, pepper to taste, mix thoroughly, roll in breading and place on a hot frying pan.

What to add to cutlets instead of eggs

It will work out ideally if you add less white bread to the cutlets, taking into account the amount of semolina added.

Fry the cutlets in the usual way. When I fried these cutlets, they turned out very tasty and juicy, and most importantly, they did not fall apart during frying.

We prepare delicious cutlets.

If your cutlets fall apart in the frying pan or, on the contrary, they turn out hard and dry, perhaps it’s all about the proportions of the minced meat. So for one kilogram of any boneless meat you should add stale white bread in an amount of 250 grams. The bread must first be soaked in 300 ml of water or You can use milk instead of water. You should also add onions, 20 g of salt, and ground black pepper to taste and your desire.
✿Quite often, many housewives add eggs to the minced meat. This doesn't always come in handy. Both meat and eggs contain a lot of protein, and when frying, protein absorbs moisture and coagulates. At the same time, the minced meat itself shrinks quite significantly, releasing juice and it is from this that the cutlets turn out to be tough and dry.
✿Eggs should be added when the minced meat turns out runny. If the minced meat is completely normal in consistency, you should not add eggs. It is on this basis that it is best to soak bread not in milk (after all, there is also enough protein there), but simply in water.
✿When you pass the meat through a meat grinder, its temperature rises slightly (by three to five degrees). An increase in temperature greatly contributes to the more successful development of various microorganisms. And in order for the minced meat to not have such a high temperature after leaving the meat grinder, the piece of meat must be pre-cooled before processing.
Bread should be added to the minced meat when it is stale and without burnt crusts. After you have soaked the bread in milk or water for 10-15 minutes, it will retain moisture well. You should not squeeze a piece of bread too much after soaking it, otherwise it will no longer be distributed evenly in the minced meat and this will accordingly deprive the minced meat of the necessary juiciness. But if the bread is soft or still fresh, this leads to the cutlet mass becoming sticky.

✿The sharpness of the knives of your meat grinder largely affects the juiciness of the cutlets. So, dull knives in a meat grinder will not cut meat, but will only mash it, as a result of which the meat will lose its juiciness.
✿Minced cutlet cooked with raw onions and garlic must be fried immediately, i.e. immediately after its preparation. And in order for your cutlets to be much tastier and more tender, just before breading them in breadcrumbs, you should moisten them with broth.