Source: FOSS Cooking (community recipes)
Pozharskiye cutlets are forcemeat croquettes bound with butter and breadcrumbs — the butter melts into the ground-meat mixture as you fry it, creating the characteristic juiciness that defines the dish. Start by bringing your chicken mince and butter to room temperature for thirty minutes; cold butter won't distribute evenly through the meat and will leak out unevenly during cooking.
Soak your white bread crusts removed in cold water for two minutes, then squeeze it dry thoroughly. This bread becomes the structural binder; waterlogged bread will disintegrate. Mince the onion finely — you want it to disappear into the forcemeat, not announce itself as fragments. Work the moist bread, mince, softened butter cut into small dice, two eggs, salt, and spice together with your hands until the mixture is homogeneous and sticky. This is egg-binding at work: the egg protein coagulates during frying and traps the butter and meat juices inside the croquette. The mixture should feel tacky enough to hold together but loose enough to spread when pressed.
Make one test cutlet before committing to the batch. Form a ball roughly the size of a walnut, then flatten it into an oval about two centimetres thick. Set up two bowls: one with beaten egg, one with fine breadcrumbs. Dredge the cutlet in egg, then breadcrumbs, then egg again, then breadcrumbs once more — this double breading creates the crisp, insulating layer that keeps the interior from drying out. Pat gently so the breadcrumbs adhere; they should look like a thin crust, not a heavy shell.
Heat clarified butter or a butter-oil blend in a shallow pan to 160°C — you're looking for immediate, vigorous bubbling around the cutlet's edges when it hits the pan. Fry the test cutlet for four to five minutes per side until the crust is deep golden brown and the surface is no longer visibly wet. Transfer to paper towel and let cool for two minutes before tasting. The inside should be steaming and moist, the outside crisp without greasiness.
Fry the remaining cutlets in batches, maintaining the oil temperature between fries. Serve hot with mustard or a light cream sauce.
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