Home cook: Sharmini Jayawardena
Our dinner menu for three generations was made up of cutlets of beef or fish once a week!
Truly Awesic!
These delicious delectables were eaten with a side of salad or steamed vegetables and bread and butter! Not forgetting the homemade chili sauce.
You could say we were absolutely spoilt for choice where food was concerned.
Another delight that also made a weekly appearance on the dinner table was what the Sri Lankan’s call Chinese Rolls.
On that later.
Now to get down to the making of cultlets –
Makes 11 medium size cutlets.
Ingredients
200grams minced meat (I used finely hand chopped wild boar)
1 medium size onion chopped
2 small green chilies sliced
2 sprigs curry leaf
Leaves of 4 sprigs mint leaves sliced
1 tbls chili powder
1 tsp black pepper powder
2 tbls coconut oil
1/2 tsp sugar
White vinegar to taste
Salt to taste
4 boiled potatoes
Bread crumbs to double coat the cutlets once prepped.
Mixture of wheat flour/all purpose flour and water for coating the cutlets.
Coconut oil to deep fry the cutlets.
Method
1. Marinade the minced meat in chillie powder, pepper powder, vinegar and salt, mix well and set aside.
2. In a medium size pan, heat the coconut oil and add the chopped onion and shallow fry until golden brown.
3. Add the curry leaves and green chili and fry.
4. Add the marinated meat and fry until very dry.
5. Add the sliced mint leaves and fry until all moisture is evaporated.
6. Check for seasoning. Add vinegar, salt and pepper powder to taste and fry until dry.
7. Mash the potatoes, leaving a few small parts remaining for texture or mouthfeel.
8. Remove all curry leaves from the mix.
9. Add the mashed potato to the fried meat and mix well.
10. Now portion out equal size balls of the mixture and flatten them in the shape of patties.
(The shape of meat cutlets is patty shaped and cylindrical shaped for fish cutlets).
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11. Dip in the flour and water mixture so that it covers the entire area of the patty and coat them in bread crumbs. Do this twice over to give the cutlets a good crusty crumb.
12. Prep to deep fry by pouring more then enough oil to submerge the cutlets in very hot oil. (If there’s not enough oil, the cutlets will come a part!).
13. Once you place one cutlet at a time in very hot oil, you only need to deep fry it for a short time. As it turns a golden brown, (which it will very quickly), remove them on to kitchen paper to absorb any excess oil dripping from the fried cutlets.
14. Now your cutlets are done.
15. Arrange them on a plate and serve hot.
