Beef Cutlets with Butter Filling

The meat and the butter filling

1. To keep beef cutlets tender, avoid very “old” meat and veal. Choose ordinary boneless meat of the kind used for mince, goulash or any braised dish. It is highly desirable that it has as little connective tissue as possible and no large pieces of fat.

2. If the meat is frozen, thaw it slowly by moving it from the freezer to the refrigerator.

   

   To make the cutlets juicy, prepare the butter filling in advance. It takes some time, so start with it.

3. Let a piece of butter soften at room temperature.

4. Pick all the leaves off the parsley sprigs and chop them finely.

5. Mix the butter and parsley, season generously with freshly ground black pepper and mix thoroughly.

   

6. Put the butter on a piece of plastic wrap and roll it into a thin cylinder, about as thick as a pencil. Place it in the freezer while you make the mince.

The mince

1. Peel a medium onion.

2. Pass the meat through the meat grinder twice so the mince is more uniform. Grind the onion together with the meat.

   If you like, you can add up to a third of ground pork to the mince, as is often done.

3. Add one egg, season with salt and ground black pepper. Add 0.5 tsp each of ground coriander and coarsely ground sweet red paprika, because beef cutlets should be well spiced.

   

4. Knead the mince thoroughly so all the ingredients are evenly distributed.

   If the mince turns out a little “loose”, feel free to add 1 tbsp of breadcrumbs (8 g) or grate a piece of stale white bread and mix again. Breadcrumbs bind the mince well, absorbing the excess moisture as they soften.

5. Let the mince rest for a few minutes.

   

Shaping the cutlets

1. This amount of mince is enough for about 6-8 cutlets, as you prefer.

2. Take the frozen herb butter out of the freezer, remove the plastic and cut the butter with a knife into 6-8 equal pieces, one per cutlet.

3. Divide the mince into the same number of portions. Flatten each portion slightly and place one piece of frozen herb butter on each.

   

4. With wet hands, shape the cutlets one by one. The piece of frozen herb butter must be completely covered with mince, and ideally the layer of meat around the butter should be even. Press the mince lightly with your palms.

5. Give the cutlets a slightly elongated shape. If you like, you can flatten them a little.

   Do not make them round, as they would need a different frying regime so that the meat cooks through without burning the breading.

   

6. Coat the cutlets in breadcrumbs.

   Unfortunately, store-bought breadcrumbs are rarely of good quality. For a long time now we have been buying a good white baguette and drying it. Grating the dry bread and sifting it gives excellent breading, and it is always fresh.

   

Frying and serving

1. Heat 2 tbsp of vegetable oil in a frying pan and add 1 tbsp of butter.

2. When the fat is hot and starts to bubble, reduce the heat to medium. Place the cutlets in the hot fat.

3. Fry until a golden crust forms. Then turn the cutlets over and fry until a golden crust forms on the second side.

   

   Usually at this point the pan is covered with a lid to finish cooking the meat. But this way the breading would get soggy.

4. Reduce the heat further, to low, and finish frying the cutlets without a lid, turning them often.

   Inside the cutlets there is butter, which soon melts and gets very hot. Only a little of it leaks out, and it cooks the meat from the inside with its heat. The total cooking time for the cutlets is less than 15 mins.

5. To be safe, check for doneness by piercing one cutlet with a knife and looking at the color of the juices and the meat: the juices should be clear and the meat should have no pink.

   

6. Serve the cutlets while they are very hot.

   When they cool, the butter solidifies and the cutlets get a bit tough, and you will have to reheat them. Ideally, when you cut one open, some of the butter flows out onto the plate. As a side dish we almost always serve mashed potatoes and finely chopped green onion. I recommend adding a medium-hot tomato sauce. And a little vegetable salad too, for example beet with prunes and walnuts.