Do you know how many calories are in a cutlet? How much does she weigh? Can you imagine how to calculate all this? It's not that simple. But I will try... to at least roughly orient myself and you on this vital issue.
I will make the calculation based on the recipe for cutlets, which I usually do, the version in the oven. The composition of these cutlets is always approximately the same, with a 50/50 ratio of meat and other ingredients. Approximately. Here's what's in the finished minced meat:
Beef and pork - approximately in half / 600 grams each, respectively;
The remaining ingredients should be approximately 50% of the finished minced meat: a large onion, a couple of large potatoes, a medium carrot, a quarter of a loaf, a couple of eggs and a small pack of breadcrumbs. There are also all sorts of seasonings.
I'm not taking into account frying oil right now. It will be a separate, very important article.
As a result, the ratio in minced meat is 1200 g. meat and 1120 - everything else. That is, 52% versus 48%. We’ve sorted out the components and their participation in the cutlets... now let’s look at the calories:
| Product | Kcal, 100 grams | Weight | Kcal, fact |
| Beef | 198 | 600 | 1188 |
| Pork | 263 | 600 | 1578 |
| Onion | 40 | 300 | 120 |
| Potato | 77 | 350 | 270 |
| Carrot | 41 | 150 | 60 |
| Bread | 260 | 100 | 260 |
| Eggs | 143 | 120 | 172 |
| Breadcrumbs | 350 | 100 | 350 |
| Total: | 2320 | 3999 | |
A selection from the USDA database, made according to the following criteria: “beef grass-fed ground raw”, “pork ground raw”, “onions raw”, “potatoes raw”, “carrots raw”, “egg whole fresh”. The calorie content of the loaf and breadcrumbs is from the packaging.
Now, we need to know how many cutlets will come out of this amount of minced meat. Is it true? So, experimentally, I determined that the weight of a raw cutlet is 75 grams. This is the kind of cutlet that women make “by default”, and men - when they try to make the cutlets “small”.
These are the cutlets
Let's calculate the calorie content of our minced cutlet: 3999 / 2320 * 100 = 172. Calorie content of minced cutlet: 172 kcal / 100 grams, and one cutlet - 129 kcal, respectively. The calorie content of the cutlet will remain the same if you cook it in the oven, and if you fry it, it will be different, more on that later.
During heat treatment, the raw cutlet loses about a fifth (20%) of its weight - 15 grams and as a result, the finished cutlet weighs approximately 60 grams, with the same calorie content, since it loses weight solely due to water. That is, the calorie content of cutlets cooked in the oven is 210 kcal per 100 grams.
Delicious recipe! Simple pie with pumpkin and potatoes recipes
I will indicate the calorie content of fried cutlets in a separate article. The fact is that it is the frying process that categorically affects the final calorie content of the cutlets. So, through experience, I came to the figure 55. This is the minimum number of grams of vegetable oil that is required to prepare cutlets from one kilogram of minced meat.
For 1 kg of minced cutlet, 55 grams of vegetable oil is required. Minimum!
That is, if you try very hard to make the cutlets as “dietary” as possible and fry them in the smallest amount of oil, then you will spend at least 4 grams of oil for each cutlet!
