From the late 1700s until about 1900, virtually all recipes for "cutlets" in English-language cookbooks referenced veal cutlets. Then pork cutlets began to appear. More recently, in American and Canadian cuisine, cutlets have also been made using chicken, although this was also imported from Europe. The cutlet is usually coated with flour, egg and bread crumbs, then fried in a pan with some oil.
Austrian cuisine
Australian cuisine
Australians eat lamb cutlets battered with egg yolk and breadcrumbs. Chicken cutlets are also very popular, but known as chicken schnitzel. Both lamb cutlets and chicken schnitzel are a staple of Australian children's cuisine. Amongst most Australians of Italian descent, the term schnitzel is replaced by the term cutlet. Cutlets amongst this population are usually veal or chicken.
British cuisine
In British cuisine a cutlet is usually unbreaded and can also be called a chop. If referring to beef, more than one piece together would be generally called a rib of beef or a rib joint, whilst lamb ribs are called a rack, or rack of lamb. Lamb racks can also be tied into a circular shape before cooking, with the ribs on the outside, giving a crown shape, leading to the name "crown of lamb".
Cuban cuisine
Cutlets are called "pollo empanizado" it is very common and also done with thin cuts of steak.
In Hong Kong, the cutlet was introduced during the period of British colonial occupation along with other cooking influences. It is seen as "sai chaan" or Western cuisine. Veal, pork and chicken are battered and deep fried for lunch. Seafood such as shrimp or scallop that is battered or breaded and deep fried such as can also be known as 'cutlet' in Hong Kong. It is usually served alongside rice or spaghetti noodles.
Indian cuisine
In Indian cuisine, a cutlet specifically refers to mashed vegetables or cooked meat stuffing that is fried with a batter/covering. The meat itself is cooked with spices - onion, cardamom, cloves, cinnamon, coriander, green chillies, lemon and salt. This is then dipped in an egg mix or Corn starch and then in Bread crumbs, and fried in ghee or vegetable oil. Mostly chicken and mutton cutlets are very popular snacks in the city ofKolkata. The vegetarian version has no meat in it, instead the filling is a combination of mashed potatoes, onion, green chillies, spices and salt, cooked for a bit together. This version is more popular with the vegetarian Indian population. An example is the Aloo Tikki.
Iranian cuisine
In Iran, cutlet is a popular hamburger-like thin layered fried of mixture of ground beef, mashed potatoes, eggs, onions, spices and bread crumbs.
Italian cuisine
The use of the cutlet is quite widespread in Italian cuisine in many different variations. The most famous variant is the Milanese cutlet, a veal cutlet covered in bread crumbs and fried in butter. It should not be mistaken for the Wiener schnitzel, because it's a different cut of meat; the Milanese cutlet cut includes the bone, whereas the Wienerschnitzel doesn't. It is disputed whether the cotoletta alla milanese originated the Wienerschnitzel, or vice versa.
The cutlet was introduced to Japan during the Meiji period, in a Western cuisine restaurant in the fashionable Ginza district of Tokyo. The Japanese pronunciation of cutlet is katsuretsu. In Japanese cuisine, katsuretsu or shorter katsu is actually the name for a Japanese version of the Wiener schnitzel, a breaded cutlet. Dishes with katsu include tonkatsu and katsudon.
Cuisines of Russia, Ukraine and other countries of former Soviet Union
In modern Russian, the wordkotleta refers almost exclusively to pan-fried minced meatcroquettes / cutlet-shaped patties. Bread soaked in milk, onions, garlic, and herbs is usually present in the recipe. When in a hurry, a "cutlet" can be eaten between bread slices like a hamburger, but this fast meal is rarely served in restaurants. It is usually served with pan-fried potatoes, mashed potatoes, pasta, etc. In the middle of the 20th century, industrially produced, semi-processed ground meat cutlets were introduced in the USSR. Colloquially known as Mikoyan cutlets, these were cheap pork or beef cutlet-shaped patties which resembled American burgers. In Ukrainian cuisine, a variety called sichenyk is made of minced meat or fish and vegetables and covered with bread crumbs. A particular form of the Russian kotleta known as Pozharsky cutlet is an elaborated version of minced poultry kotleta covered with breadcrumbs. A distinct feature of this cutlet is that butter is added to minced meat, which results in an especially juicy and tender consistency. Another Russian version of a cutlet, called otbivnaya kotleta, meaning "beaten cutlet", is a fried slice of meat, usually pork or beef, beaten flat with a tenderizing hammer or knife handle and covered with beaten eggs, dough or breadcrumbs. The recipe is similar to those of escalopes, schnitzel, Polish, or American cutlets. Today, this dish is simply called otbivnaya, with the word kotleta reserved for minced meat patties. Chicken Kiev is called kotleta po-kievski in Russian and similarly kotleta po-kyivski in Ukrainian, which means "Kiev-style cutlet".
In Sri Lankan cuisine cutlets almost always refer to fish and potato croquettes. Usually the fish and potatoes are mixed with spices, green chilies and onions and dipped in a batter made of flour and eggs before being crumbed and fried.
