Kotlety (boulettes russes) de Nina, version #1

Une première recette pour Kotlety à la russe. Celle-ci me vient de cousins émigrés en Amérique, donc, in English!

• 1 lb ground veal, 1lb ground beef;
• 2 finely chopped onions;
• 1 pressed garlic clove;
• 2 eggs;
• 1 cup bread crumbs (pieces of white bread or roughly broken up biscottes) soaked in milk;
• ready-made dried bread crumbs;
• 1 tsp cumin;
• chopped fresh parsley to taste;
• 1 tsp salt (guesstimate);
• ½ tsp freshly ground pepper;
• Peanut oil for frying.

Mix everything save the oil and the dried bread crumbs together in a bowl.

Lay out your dried bread crumbs on a clean work surface.
Take enough meat to form a patty about 3 inches long and 2 inches wide (about 1 inch thick.) Roll each side of your patty in the bread crumbs to obtain a thin coating. My grandmother used to cut a shallow grid with the edge of a knife on each side of the breaded patties, so that the cooked kotlety had a lozenge pattern on each side. Repeat until all your patties are ready.
Heat the oil in a non-stick pan on fairly high heat.
Place each formed, shaped breaded patty on the pan where the oil should sizzle upon making contact. Repeat until your pan is full. Each side should be seared to a nice brown after a few minutes; then lower the heat to medium-low and cook for about 10 minutes (depending on how many patties you have going.) When you cut into one of the patties, the inside should be moist pink.
Remove the kotlety from the pan and repeat if you have leftover raw patties.
Note: don’t cover the pan with any kind of lid when you’re cooking the patties as it will make them too soft.

Nina (p.c.c. AE)