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Breaded Mutton Chops
Wipe and trim chops, sprinkle with salt, pepper, and dredge with flour. Dip in egg diluted with cold water or milk (allowing two tablespoons to each egg), then in fine bread crumbs, repeat if not well coated with crumbs. Fry in deep hot Cottolene about ten minutes. Drain on brown paper and serve in a border of hot Mashed Potatoes with Green Pepper, or in a nest of Green Peas dressed with Maître d'Hôtel Butter.
A straightforward breaded chop, but two things in it date the recipe: the frying fat and the assumption that mutton is on the counter.
- CottoleneA branded cottonseed-oil shortening that the book was written to promote; it is long gone. Any neutral high-smoke-point oil or a mild shortening does the same job, in a heavy pan at least two inches deep.
- Fat temperatureThe original says only "deep hot." Hold 350-365F. Below that the crumb coating soaks; much above it and the crust colors before the center of a thick chop is done.
- MuttonMutton means sheep over a year or two old, stronger in flavor and firmer than lamb. Supermarkets sell lamb rib or loin chops; those work, cook faster, and taste milder. Halal and Caribbean butchers are the likeliest source for true mutton.
- Ten minutesThat figure probably assumes a fairly thick chop. For thinner lamb chops it is likely too long -- go by internal temperature (around 130-135F for pink, though USDA advises 145F), and expect five to seven minutes total.
- Double coatingThe recipe says to repeat the egg and crumbs only if the chop is not well coated. A single thin coat can blister off in deep fat; a second pass, with a few minutes' rest before frying so the crumbs set, helps keep the crust intact.
- Bread crumbs"Fine bread crumbs" here means dried crumbs rubbed through a sieve, not coarse panko. Panko will work but gives a spikier, more modern-looking crust.
- Brown paperGrocers' bag paper was the period draining surface. A wire rack set over a sheet pan is better -- paper traps steam under the chop and softens the bottom crust.
- Maître d'hôtel butterButter worked smooth with lemon juice, chopped parsley, salt and pepper, then chilled. A slice melting over hot peas is all that is intended.
- YieldFigure two chops per person for rib chops, one for a thick loin or shoulder chop.
52 Sunday Dinners was published as advertising: Cottolene was a cottonseed-oil shortening sold by the N. K. Fairbank Company as a cheaper, supposedly more wholesome substitute for lard, and the book exists to put its name in front of housekeepers fifty-two times over. That explains why the fat is specified by brand and the mutton is not. Mutton itself was still ordinary American butcher's meat in the 1900s; the shift to almost exclusively young lamb came later in the century as feeding and slaughter ages changed, which is why a recipe this plain now reads as slightly exotic. The serving suggestions -- a piped border of mashed potato, or peas as a "nest" -- are pure turn-of-the-century plating, borrowed from professional French service and scaled down for a Sunday table.