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Chops, Fried
Prepare the chops as before. Brush each chop with beaten egg, and cover them with finely-grated bread-crumbs. Put a good slice of butter into the frying-pan, and when it is melted, place them in it. Turn them two or three times, and when they are nearly ready, sprinkle salt and pepper over them. Fry them over a clear fire not less than ten or more than fifteen minutes. When they are taken up lay them for a moment or two on blotting paper, to absorb the fat. Make some good melted butter, and stir into it, when boiling, two table-spoonfuls of finely-minced pickled gherkins. Probable cost, 1s. to 1s. 2d. per pound. One chop will be sufficient for each person.
A breaded chop with a sharp gherkin sauce, written for a cook who already knew the house rules. Two phrases need translating before you start.
- "Make some good melted butter"In Victorian books this is not butter melted in a pan but a thickened butter sauce: butter and a little flour cooked together, then whisked with water or light stock until smooth and boiling. Period proportions run much richer in butter than a modern white sauce — roughly 2 oz butter to a dessertspoonful of flour and a quarter-pint of liquid. Plain melted butter with gherkins in it will split and taste greasy; the flour is what holds the sauce together.
- "Prepare the chops as before"The preceding entries presumably cover trimming the chop, scraping the bone end clean, flattening it slightly and cutting away all but a thin rim of fat. Mutton or lamb loin and rib chops are the likeliest intention; pork or veal chops take the same treatment.
- BreadingEgg and crumbs will slide off a wet chop. Pat the meat dry, and use dry fine crumbs rather than fresh soft ones so the coating browns instead of soaking. Letting the crumbed chops sit ten minutes before frying helps the crust stay put.
- Ten to fifteen minutesThat range suits a thick chop of about an inch over gentle heat, turning as directed so the crumbs colour without burning. Judge by the meat, not the clock: current guidance for whole cuts of lamb, mutton, pork and veal is 145F internal with a short rest, though cooks who prefer lamb pink take it off nearer 130-140F.
- "A clear fire"Coals with no smoke or flame, giving steady moderate heat. On a modern hob this is medium; a hot pan will blacken the crumbs long before the centre of the chop is done.
- Butter alone will burnA "good slice" of butter over twelve minutes will brown and then scorch. Clarified butter, or butter with a spoonful of neutral oil, gives the same flavour without the milk solids catching.
- Blotting paperUse kitchen paper. Old blotting paper was unsized and untreated; modern stationery is not something to lay food on.
- Cost and yieldOne shilling to 1s. 2d. per pound is a middling to upper-middling meat price for the 1870s-90s, above the cheaper cuts but well short of the costliest. One chop per person, as stated; allow two if they are small rib chops.
The egg-and-crumb fry was taught as a technique to be applied to anything: chops, cutlets, croquettes, cold fish, and the gherkin sauce belongs to the same logic. British cookery of the period leaned heavily on pickled vegetables and bottled condiments to cut through fried and roasted meat. The instruction to salt and pepper only near the end reflects a belief, common in Victorian cookery writing, that early salting drew out the juices; the reasoning was shaky, but the timing does keep salt off the crumb coating, where it would draw moisture and soften the crust.