This Russian kotleti recipe makes delicious deep-fried Russian style chicken meat patties, or chicken cutlets or chicken meatballs if you prefer, which my baboushka served with mashed potatoes and a garden salad or as one dish of an array of plates if being eaten as part of a shared family feast as so many of our meals were.
One of our best chicken cutlet recipes, my Russian kotleti recipe makes one of my favourite Russian recipes, the very moreish fried chicken meat patties or chicken cutlets, which is the direct translation. My baboushka would often cook these as one of the many traditional Russian dishes that she would lay out for shared family meals – whether it was a Russian Christmas or Easter feast or one of the countless long Sunday lunches that turned into dinners.
As with all the traditional Russian recipes I’ve been posting to celebrate the Russian Orthodox Christmas and New Year, that have so far included Russian pelmeni, stuffed cabbage rolls, beet potato salad and a classic garden salad, these are family recipes, the recipes of my childhood and of my memories, recipes I’ve been cooking and have adapted over many years.
But before I tell you more about my Russian kotleti recipe, I have a favour to ask. Grantourismo is reader-supported. If you’ve cooked and enjoyed our recipes, please consider supporting Grantourismo. For instance, you could buy something on Amazon, such as one of these classic cookbooks for serious cooks or cookbooks for culinary travellers; book a cooking class or meal with locals on EatWith when you travel; or buy a handcrafted KROK, the best mortar and pestle ever. We earn a small commission at no extra cost to you.
And if you’re looking for more cooking inspiration, we have many hundreds of recipes from around the world in our archives from places we’ve lived, travelled and loved. Note that you can save your favourites by clicking on the heart on the right of any post to create your own private account. Now let’s tell you more about this about my Russian kotleti recipe.
Russian Kotleti Recipe for Delicious Deep Fried Russian Chicken Meat Patties
Before I tell you more about my Russian kotleti recipe, I want to tell you about my Russian-Ukrainian family and the recipes I’ve been sharing as I’ve been fielding some questions on social media. If you’re only here for the food, feel free to scroll down to the tips.
My Russian-Ukrainian Family’s Story and Family Recipes
My Russian-Ukrainian grandparents were born during the Russian Empire and raised under the the Soviet Union. My grandmother, my ‘baboushka’, was born in a village in the district of Odessa in the land we now know as Ukraine, when it was part of Imperial Russia.
My grandmother’s mother – that is, my mum’s baboushka and my great grandmother – Daria, was born in Luck, during the Russian Empire, but raised under the Polish. Now Lutsk, it’s a Western Ukrainian city. My grandfather was born in a village in Russian Donetsk but he often called Kiev his city, as that’s where he said he “came of age”.
Like millions of others, they were forced to leave when the Nazis invaded, worked in labour camps in Germany, which is where my grandparents met, fell in love and had my mother, and were in displaced persons camps in Germany and in Naples, Italy. From there they travelled by ship, separately, to Australia after World War 2 – long before Ukraine gained independence in 1991 when some 45% of the population of Ukraine identified as Russian.
As Russian-Ukrainians from the land we now know as Ukraine, my family cooked and ate what they called ‘Russian food’, partly because they were born during the Russian Empire, partly because Ukraine as a nation didn’t exist then, and also because what they ate was considered to be the food of ‘Russian’ culture. Although there were obviously elements of Ukraine cuisine, including Ukrainian dishes in my grandmother’s cooking.
This is to explain why I’ve called this Russian kotleti recipe and many other Russian recipes in this collection of my family recipes ‘Russian’. That is not to deny that some of these dishes, variations on these dishes, and similar dishes have long been cooked and eaten in Ukraine. When the Ukrainian origin of the dish is clear, I’ll call it ‘Ukrainian’.
I was raised by my grandparents to think of Russian and Ukrainians as cousins, having formed their early identities long before there were borders and nation-states, along with Belorussians, in the medieval Kievan Rus Empire, whose two capitals were located in the lands we now know as Ukraine and Russia.
Russians and Ukrainians share many ingredients, dishes, snacks, and culinary customs with other ethnic groups, language groups, cultures, and countries that were once part of the Russian Empire and Soviet Union or share the same religion, along with other Eastern European countries, which explains why dishes such as kotleti are found in both Russia and Ukraine and other neighbouring countries.
I’m going to share more about Russian and Ukrainian cuisines and their intertwined culinary histories and the connections with the cuisines of neighbouring countries that share a passion for home-cooked food and connecting over shared meals with family and friends. Because we’re all about the things that bring us together, not drive us apart. But first, let me tell you about this Russian kotleti recipe.
My Russian Kotleti Recipe
My Russian kotleti recipe will make you delicious Russian-style minced chicken patties that are very similar to those my baboushka made, which I grew up eating in my grandparents’ red brick home in Blacktown in the western suburbs of Sydney in the 1970s. ‘Kotleti’ translates to ‘cutlets’ but they’re something between a chicken cutlet and a chicken pattie.
Baba would buy cuts of meat from her favourite butcher in Blacktown on her daily morning shop and Papa would mince the meat she’d bought in his old hand-grinder in the garage that was fixed to a rustic handmade wooden work bench that he’d made himself.
Papa had also built my grandparents’ and parents houses. The shiny steel mincer sat amongst grease-covered tools, beneath a ceiling of cobwebs. From a young age, it intrigued me how papa kept the thing so clean amongst all that grime.
If there was a big gang of us arriving for a Russian Christmas or Easter feast or one of the countless long Sunday lunches that turned into dinners – baba and papa, mum and dad, my two uncles and their girlfriends and later wives, maybe a priest or my grandparents’ friends or neighbours; years later, my husband Terence, and occasionally a friend I’d invite to join us – then the kotleti would be served in a casserole dish at the centre of the dining table.
Everyone would help themselves to the kotleti, along with Russian pelmeni and vareniki, salads and cabbage rolls. We’d take a bit of everything soon after sitting down and then during the course of an afternoon that would often extend into the evening, we’d replenish our plates with a bit of this and that, in between vodka shots and beer, conversations, tales and reminiscences.
If it was a small group of immediate family members, perhaps only papa, baba and myself if I’d trekked out to Blacktown on the train from inner-city Sydney for a night or two, as I did during my first two years at university, then baba might serve us individually, plating the kotleti with creamy mashed potatoes and her Russian garden salad.
She would always send me home with any leftover kotleti, along with a dozen piroshki or so wrapped up in tea towels to keep them warm for the train ride home.
Russian Kotleti Recipe for Fried Russian Chicken Minced Patties
Ingredients
- Neutral cooking oil
- ½ onion - finely chopped
- 3 garlic cloves - finely chopped
- 1 small carrot - finely grated
- 3 slices of white bread or a small baguette
- ¼ cup milk
- 250 g minced chicken
- ½ tsp sea salt
- ½ tsp black pepper
- 2 tbsp fresh dill - finely chopped
Instructions
- Sauté finely chopped onions in a tablespoon of neutral cooking oil until soft and nearly translucent, then add finely chopped garlic and finely grated carrot and continue to sauté, adding a tad more oil if necessary, until carrots are soft then transfer to a mixing bowl to cool down a little.
- Soak three slices of white bread or slices of a small baguette in the milk so that the bread is completely submerged and absorbs the milk. When it’s very soft, squelchy and almost mushy, squeeze out the milk then transfer it to the mixing bowl.
- Add the chicken mince, sea salt, black pepper and finely chopped dill to the mixing bowl and combine well.
- Scoop up around 70g (2.4oz) of the chicken mince mixture with a tablespoon – it should be a big heaped tablespoon – then wet your hands and, using your hands, form the minced chicken mixture into an oval shaped meat patty that looks like a squashed meatball.
- Return the oval shaped chicken meat patty to the spoon and set it down on a tray then repeat the last step. The mixture you have should make around eight chicken patties, so you’ll need eight or so tablespoons at the ready and a tray that holds all eight or so spoons. Wash and dry your hands when you’re done.
- Heat 3cm cooking oil in a small, deep frying pan until it reaches 178°C (350°F), then gently drop your first chicken meatball into the hot oil, scooping some oil onto the top of the patty so it’s covered with oil. After a few minutes, using tongs, gently turn the patty over to check the colour. If it’s not quite done you can roll it over again in another couple of minutes. Remove the chicken patty when it’s a lovely golden-brown colour. And repeat until you’ve finished the mixture.
- Plate immediately with mashed potatoes and a garden salad and dishes of sour cream and fresh dill on the side.
Nutrition
Do let us know if you make our Russian kotleti recipe as we’d love to know how it turns out for you. You can leave a comment below, email us or connect with us on social media. Scroll down to the bottom of the page for links to our social media accounts where we share these posts.
