No. 827 — Ordinary Minced Cutlets with Various Sauces

Prepare the cutlets according to the general note in the original cookbook. For six to eight people, take 2 Russian pounds of lean beef, cut it up and mince with a chopping blade or through a meat grinder.

Dice ¼–½ Russian pound of veal kidney fat, combine with the beef and mince a second time. Trim the crust from a three-kopeck French bread roll, cut it into four and soak in a glass of water, broth or milk; mix into the meat and mince again.

Add ¼ grated raw onion, two yolks, ¾ teaspoon of salt and three crushed black peppercorns. Mix thoroughly, shape into cutlets and coat with breadcrumbs. The kidney fat may be omitted entirely.

Heat a frying pan with ⅓ Russian pound of butter and brown the cutlets on both sides, then move them at once to a serving platter.

To the pan juices add ½ spoonful of butter and two or three spoonfuls of broth or water, bring to the boil and strain over the cutlets. If serving vegetables on the platter, present the gravy separately. One or two spoonfuls of very fresh sour cream can also be added and brought briefly to the boil.

The author gives all 39 ways of serving these cutlets:

1) With white or brown gravy from Nos. 404–408.

2) With mashed potatoes, No. 627, and dried green peas, No. 511.

3) With green-pea sauce, Nos. 505 and 516.

4) With green-bean sauce, Nos. 506, 507, 508 and 509.

5) With carrots according to Nos. 648–656.

6) With young carrots, No. 651.

7) With champignon sauce, Nos. 723, 724 and 725.

8) With thick Smolensk buckwheat porridge rubbed through a sieve and beaten until pale.

9) With crayfish sauce, No. 431.

10) With celery sauce or purée, Nos. 676 and 678.

11) With tomato sauce, No. 573.

12) With mushroom sauce, Nos. 712–719.

13) With sweet-and-sour sauce and raisins, No. 415.

14) With onion and caraway sauce, No. 418.

15) With onion sauce, No. 642.

16) With sweet-and-sour onion sauce, No. 420.

17) With parsnip sauce, Nos. 659–664.

18) With white-bean purée, No. 505.

19) With sorrel, No. 586.

20) With spinach, No. 585.

21) With nettles, No. 569.

22) With a sauce of young cabbage seedlings, No. 576.

23) With orache (lamb's quarters) sauce, No. 577.

24) With lettuce sauce, No. 575.

25) With wild-radish greens sauce, No. 578.

26) With beetroot, No. 686.

27) With dried-mushroom sauce, Nos. 712–714.

28) With chestnut purée or sauce, Nos. 565–566.

29) With stewed or fried mushrooms, Nos. 712–725.

30) With potatoes in sour cream, No. 611.

31) With mashed potatoes, No. 627.

32) With new potatoes, No. 601.

33) With morel sauce, Nos. 726 and 722, as printed in the original.

34) With braised cucumbers, Nos. 571 and 572.

35) With fried root vegetables, No. 699.

36) With lentil sauce, No. 523.

37) With onion purée, No. 645.

38) With pumpkin sauce, No. 581.

39) With fluffy rice, poured over with the butter in which the cutlets were fried.

To provide