Mutton Chops
Season with salt and pepper, put in skillet, cover closely, and fry five minutes, turning over once; dip each chop in beaten egg, then in cracker or bread-crumbs, and fry till tender or nicely browned on each side; or put in oven in a dripping-pan, with a little water, salt and pepper; baste frequently and bake until brown. To broil lamb chops, trim neatly, broil over a clear fire, season with pepper and salt, and serve with green pease.
Three treatments in one entry: a two-stage pan-fry with a crumb coat, an oven method, and a plain broil for lamb. The crumbed version is the unusual one, and it depends on the first five minutes searing the chop before the egg goes anywhere near it.
- Sear first, then crumbThe chop is fried covered for five minutes before being dipped in egg and crumbs. That first stage cooks and browns the meat; the second only sets and colours the coating, so it needs two or three minutes a side over medium heat, not longer.
- Fat in the skilletThe recipe specifies no fat, and a skillet of the period would usually have carried drippings already. A dry pan will scorch the crumbs before they colour evenly; a thin film of oil or clarified butter is enough.
- "Fry till tender"Mutton in 1877 came from a mature sheep and genuinely needed the extra time. Modern lamb chops are from animals under a year old and are best pulled at 130-135F internal for medium-rare; carrying them to "tender" will give you grey meat.
- Cracker crumbsNineteenth-century cracker crumbs came from rolled soda or water crackers, drier and coarser than commercial breadcrumbs. Crushed saltines or panko both give a closer texture than fine dried crumbs.
- The oven method"Bake until brown" in a dripping-pan with a little water suggests a fairly hot oven; the book gives no temperature and no time, so work by colour and baste two or three times. The water keeps the pan drippings from burning as they collect.
- Broiling over a clear fireA clear fire is one burned down to steady coals with no flame or smoke. A gas or charcoal grill at high heat, or an oven broiler with the rack close to the element, does the same job: three to four minutes a side for a chop about an inch thick.
- Green peaseSimply green peas. Fresh shelled peas were a seasonal luxury.
- YieldThe recipe gives no yield. By modern practice two rib or loin chops per person is usual; shoulder chops are larger and one may serve.
Mutton and lamb are treated as near-interchangeable here, with only the closing lines singling lamb out for broiling, and that division reflects the American market of the 1870s more than any culinary preference. Sheep are generally said to have been kept in the Midwest largely for wool, and the meat that reached the table was often from older animals whose flavour was strong and whose muscle wanted long or careful cooking. Buckeye Cookery and Practical Housekeeping, which grew out of the 1876 Buckeye Cookbook compiled by churchwomen in Marysville, Ohio, is characteristically economical about it: one paragraph offers three methods so the cook can match the cut and the fuel she has. The egg-and-crumb coating on an already-seared chop is a frugal old trick, giving a crisp surface and a little bulk to a small piece of meat. Mutton's near-disappearance from American butcher counters is usually traced to a later period, after the wool trade declined and lamb was marketed as the milder, more modern choice.