My maternal grandmother was an exceptionally good cook and everyone in the family used to talk about her fish cutlets.
I have never eaten her fish cutlet because of one episode that happened 2 decades before my birth. It was my youngest aunt’s engagement and my grandmother decided to make fish cutlet for the guests. She got everything ready and how much ever she tried, the cutlets just broke apart when she tried to fry it. I can only imagine her heart break, because she even baked the bread herself that she later made in to bread crumbs to coat the cutlet.
If it happened now, I would have saved the day like ‘Superman’ ( Ok , make that superwoman). All she had to do was to soak a couple of bread slices (sans crust) in water, squeeze the water out and mix it in to the dough and it will hold the cutlet together when you fry it.
I make fish cutlet often. But there is one thing I absolutely hate to do. coating the cutlets in egg. I can’t stand the sliminess of raw egg and I wash my hand every few minutes. Usually, I do this when I have friends over for dinner.
This particular time, this particular friend is from far north Queensland. His house in 1700 KM away from the nearest supermarket. To buy grocery, He flies his plane once every 3 months and go to the town! In other words, I think he lives in Jurassic park era.
After seeing me wash my hand a million times, he very casually tells me.” you do know, you can just use Mayonnaise instead of egg?”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
He took the Mayo from the fridge, took a teaspoon in to a bowl, added another teaspoon of water, stirred the mixture,which now looked like a curdled milk and told me, “try this”
I grew up in the city, I have the largest collection of recipe books and a man who has never ever been to a proper school ( he was the product of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/School_of_the_Air ) and never seen a recipe book is telling me that I can use something that looks like curdled milk instead of slimy raw egg.. this I had to see.
I dipped the cutlet in the mayo water mix, first thing I noticed was that it wasn’t slimy, then I coated it in crumbs, hoping the crumbs wouldn’t stick, it coated in to a neat layer and there wasn’t lumps of crumbs here and there and then I fried, hoping it would fall apart. It didn’t.
Astonished is a word I could use to describe my face at that moment. for more than 25 years, I struggled making cutlets. This was so easy and the least messy.
Oh the things you learn..
You should have posted it at least thirty minutes earlier. Was making cutlets, hated the egg part, and finally turned it into bonda. I hate the bread crumbs too. Doesn’t it stick to your hands? How do you handle that?
URT: Take lot of bread crumbs in a bowl, make a small well in the center, place the cutlet there, then take the crumbs from the sides of the well, dump it over the cutlet, (practically submerge the whole cutlet in to the well)..then dig out the fully coated cutlet and your fingers are clean as a whistle!
But your hands are wet from the egg already…
Btw, I use a fork for dipping the cutlets in egg.
URT: this where the hand washing starts. I wash and dry with each cutlet, now with mayo, I only wipe my hand on tissue before coating..
Got it now. I normally skip the bread crumbs unless there are guests.
And curious about your friend too. Never imagined there would be people like that. Fly your plane for 1700 km just for groceries! Wow!! So he has a farm? For regular food? I should remember not to let my husband about this. Or the next thing I know, we would be his neighbour 200 km away.
URT: He owns a cattle station and is cut off from the rest of the world during the wet season. He has a cold room at home where he keeps the frozen items. His diet is mostly meat and when he is bored with meat, he fish for barra or shoot ducks. There is no way he can drive out of his station because most roads are dirt tracks and some of it hasn’t been graded for ages., so he flies his plane when he has to go to town.
What about hospitals? And my son has a question too. How come they have post offices if they don’t have super markets. (read the wiki link on how kids submit homework-earlier) and does he have internet? (same link says now the classes are over the internet)
URT: They use Royal flying doctors because there is no hospital/doctor anywhere near. But because they grew up in the bush, they are pretty handy to handle most emergencies ! There is no post office either. Mail comes by helicopter once a month and before, they all used to send their home works through the flying doctors etc. He has phone, fax and satellite.
eenikyum cutlet venum!
Ms: va vegam..njan undakki tharam
hi sara…..long since. Coating cutlets can be done in a less messy way instead of using eggs and the oil smelling of it. Use cornflour dissolved in water along with salt and little peper powder into a thin paste in a broad bowl, In another flat plate have your crumbs. use one hand to dip the cutlets in the cornflour paste and drop it on the plate with crumbs. dip couple of cutlets and lay on the plate with crumbs spread out. spread one layer of crumbs and with dry hands role it. This way its less messy. Hope u cld make sense of the above.
Susan: if only you had told me this years ago. Being ambidextrous, I could have easily done this.. I used to go through two to three kitchen towels just to dry my hands after washing my hands each time I dipped the cutlet in the egg..