If you love meat, crunchy lemon cutlets are just the dish you are looking for. The meat is encased in a crunchy and delicious breading, made of minced aromatic herbs and pistachios, which give it a unique flavour that you need to try. To make the cutlets even more appetising and tasty, you can eat them with homemade mayonnaise. When you place this dish on the table, your dining companions will not be able to resist! A handy tip for the breading? Finely chopped walnuts can be used in place of the pistachios to make a big impression … you decide!
Ingredients for the cutlets
1 Kg Pork cutlets
FOR THE BREADING
80 g Pistachios
80 g Corn meal
3 Sprigs of Thyme
1 Sprig of Rosemary
Salt to taste
Pepper to taste
Limmi Lemon juice
20 ml Extra-virgin olive oil
FOR THE MAYONNAISE
2 Egg yolks
250 ml Vegetable oil
3 g Vinegar
25 ml Lemon juice
Salt to taste
Pepper to taste
Directions
To make the crunchy lemon cutlets begin by preparing the chopped herbs and nuts for the breading. Take the sprigs of thyme and rosemary and remove the leaves; put the shelled pistachios in a food processor.
Next mince the leaves with the pistachios and transfer the mixture to a baking pan. Add the cornmeal for polenta and mix well with a spoon; add salt and pepper to taste and set the breading aside .
Next prepare the meat; pound the cutlets on a cutting board using a meat hammer covering them with parchment paper (so the meat fibres do not break and the cutlets stay very tender). Pour the lemon juice into a baking pan and put the cutlets in for a few seconds.
Then place the cutlets in the breading that you prepared, making sure it sticks to both sides, and place them on a tray lined with parchment paper. Heat up a non-stick pan, pour in the oil and cook the cutlets one at a time.
Cook over a low flame for at least 20 minutes, remembering to turn the meat with cooking tweezers so that it cooks uniformly. Brown the breading well and in the meantime prepare the mayonnaise that will be served with the meat. Take the room-temperature eggs and separate the yolks and whites. Put the yolks in a bowl with high sides and add salt and pepper to taste.
Pour in vinegar and start to whip the ingredients with an electric beater. While you are beating the eggs, pour in the vegetable oil very slowly; you need to mix in the same direction until it turns into a dense cream.
When the mayonnaise is whipped, end by adding the lemon juice and whipping it a few more seconds with the beaters. If suddenly you see lumps in the mayonnaise, then it has “broken”. To fix it, set aside the broken mayonnaise and place an egg yolk into another bowl; whip it adding some oil and then add a tablespoon at a time of the broken mayonnaise that you set aside, working in the same bowl. Wait 20 minutes, check that the meat is cooked; you can used a skewer to see: if white juice comes out, it is ready; if it is pink it needs to cook further. Turn off the burner and serve the crunchy lemon cutlets with your mayonnaise.
