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CHOPS, BROILED (a la Maintenon)
Cut and trim the chops as before. Beat the yolk of an egg, and mix with it a tea-spoonful of finely-grated bread-crumbs, a tea-spoonful of parsley, half a tea-spoonful of thyme, and a little salt, pepper, and grated nutmeg. Cover the chops with this, then wrap each one in a piece of well-buttered writing paper, and broil them as in the last recipe, turning them often. Serve with some good brown gravy. Time, about ten minutes. Allow one chop for each person. Probable cost, 1s. 1d. per pound.
A chop cooked en papillote over the fire: the paper is the whole point, holding the egg-and-herb coating against the meat and keeping it from scorching. Two details need translating before you start.
- Use parchment, not writing paperVictorian writing paper was plain rag or wood pulp, safe enough over coals. Modern paper is bleached, coated and often printed or optically brightened, and should not touch food or heat. Cut a double thickness of baking parchment and butter it generously.
- "The last recipe" means a grillBroiling here is cooking over live coals or under a very hot grill, not baking. Get the grill or a heavy ridged pan fully hot before the chops go on, and keep them close to the heat.
- Which chopsThe recipe does not say; chops of this kind were usually mutton or lamb, loin or cutlet. Lamb loin chops are the closest thing on a modern counter.
- The coating is smallOne yolk with a teaspoon each of crumbs and parsley makes a thin paste, probably enough for only two or three chops. Scale it up rather than spreading it thinner: it should be a visible layer, not a glaze.
- TimingTen minutes total, turned often, gives lamb chops of that thickness a pink centre. Thicker supermarket chops will want twelve to fourteen. The paper hides the colour, so check with a probe or open one parcel.
- Serve in or out of the paperThe recipe does not say which. Parcels of this kind are often opened at table so the herb scent escapes; otherwise unwrap in the kitchen and lift the chop carefully, since the coating will stick to buttered paper if it cools.
- Brown gravyThe book assumes a brown gravy or reduced meat stock already to hand. Reduced lamb or beef stock, thickened lightly and seasoned, is the modern equivalent; do not pour it over the coating, serve it under or alongside.
- Yield and costOne chop per person, as stated. The 1s. 1d. per pound is a late-Victorian retail price and has no useful modern conversion.
Dishes styled a la Maintenon are named for Françoise d'Aubigné, Madame de Maintenon, who is generally said to have been secretly married to Louis XIV, and the attribution is traditional rather than documented — nineteenth-century cookery books attached her name to several preparations, most consistently to chops or cutlets wrapped in buttered paper with a savoury coating of egg, crumbs and herbs. The technique itself is en papillote, which in the age of open-fire cookery served a practical purpose: paper shielded delicate coatings from direct flame and trapped the juices at a time when there was no closed grill to do the work. Cassell's places it among the chop recipes, which is why the instructions begin by referring you back to the plain broiled chop rather than repeating themselves.