My Experiment with Beef

My stomach craved for the beef cutlets which my mother makes. As I strolled across the meat counter at Hannaford, I could not resist picking up the minced beef. I was entering new terrains. Before this, I had never cooked beef in any form. I decided to make the Beef Cutlets, my mother's way, and the only help I had, was of my watchful eyes which had captured numerous images of my mother making it over all the years. Offcourse, as you all know by now that I have to achieve the feat with the microwave only.

I tried to pick up all the Indian Spices I could, so I was well equipped to make a sumptuous meal for my first Ramzan iftari. I started off with washing of the meat and I met with my first blocker. Draining minced beef was really tough without a proper weapon. I had to make do with my hands. I always had comments from my mother that I used to drop a lot of food while eating, but I blamed it on my long fingers which left large gaps between them for food to escape. Well, the same fingers ditched me and made my draining efforts more arduous.

As it is true for all meats, the next step was to marinate it well. I added Ginger Garlic paste, Chilli powder, Coriander powder, Garam masala and salt. To add a touch of my own I added finely chopped mint leaves. And then it was break for an hour and a half. The marination looked like perfect dough. I added a little of moist bread to the dough. Once the dough was ready my mother used to ask me taste the same for the spice and salt. Though tasting raw meat was not a great idea, but I used to always oblige her. I decided to skip the tasting session.

I soon realised that I was missing out a key ingredient. The maida biscuits powder or rawa. I decided to substitute it with bread crumbs. Since i did not have dry bread, I made bread crumbs out of the soft fresh bread I had. This was the second mistake, as I struggled to equal up my mother's recipe. I took a portion of the marination rolled on my hands into flat cutlets and spread it on the soft bread crumbs. After that, I rolled it in egg. This was the most cumbersome activity as the cutlet absorbed all the egg on one side and there was no egg left for the other side. I added butter and quietly put it on to a plate and pushed it in microwave for 3 mins. After another 3 mins I changed the side and kept it inside for another 6 mins. Well the result was bad, 12 mins cooking made the beef very hard and turned it a little black and the egg layer was all rubbery.

I ate it with no complains, but for the second round I skipped the eggs, went only with the breadcrumbs, reduced the cooking time to 6 mins and the result was not that bad.

You must be wondering what was my first mistake? Skipping the tasting session. The meat was less in spice and salt. I added chopped green chillies and more garam masala and a little of salt.

In the third round, I did away with the Bread crumbs as well and reduced the cooking time to 4 mins and the result was amazing. Check it out.....