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Pork Cutlets, Broiled
Prepare the cutlets according to the directions given above; season with pepper and salt, brush them over with oil, and place them on a hot gridiron over a clear fire. Turn them two or three times that they may be equally browned on both sides, and let them be thoroughly cooked. Put them on a hot dish, and send tomato or piquant sauce, sauce Robert, or any other appropriate sauce, to table with them. Pork cutlets may be served with the same accompaniment as pork chops (see PORK CHOPS). The appearance of the cutlets will be improved if they are lightly brushed over with a little glaze, but they must be quickly served after they are taken from the fire or they will be spoiled. Time to broil, sixteen to eighteen minutes. Probable cost, 1s. per pound. Sufficient, one pound for two persons.
A method rather than a formula: seasoned pork cutlets over live coals, finished with a sauce. The main thing to update is the timing, which was written for the fat, slow-grown pork of the period.
- The timing is the hingeSixteen to eighteen minutes over a hot fire will turn a modern loin cutlet grey and dry. Today's pork is far leaner; cook to an internal temperature of 145F and rest for three minutes, which for a cutlet of about three-quarters of an inch usually means eight to ten minutes total.
- GridironAn iron grate of parallel bars set over the coals (some patterns were hinged). A charcoal grill is the closest equivalent; a ridged cast-iron pan over high heat or an overhead broiler with the rack near the element both work.
- "A clear fire"Coals burnt down past the flames and smoke, glowing and even. On gas, this means preheating properly rather than searing over a fresh flare.
- CutletsThe instruction "according to the directions given above" points back to a preparation entry not reproduced here; cutlets of this kind were generally taken from the loin or neck end, trimmed and flattened slightly. Boneless loin steaks or trimmed rib chops serve the same purpose.
- GlazeNot a sugar glaze. Victorian glaze is meat stock reduced to a sticky jelly, brushed on for shine. A few spoonfuls of well-reduced stock does the job, and the recipe's warning holds: the cutlets must go to table straight from the fire.
- Sauce RobertA brown sauce with onion, white wine or vinegar, and mustard stirred in off the heat. Mustard added to a boiling sauce turns bitter, so it goes in last.
- Yield and costOne pound for two people, so allow six to eight ounces of trimmed meat per person. The shilling a pound is late-nineteenth-century pricing and gives a rough sense of what the cut cost.
Cassell's distinguishes in practice between the chop, cut through the bone from the loin, and the cutlet, trimmed and shaped for a neater plate, and the difference is largely one of presentation for the dining room. Broiling over a clear fire was a common treatment for a good cut in the English kitchen, and the accompanying sauces named here are all sharp: tomato, piquant, and Robert, the last a classic of French cookery of long standing -- it is named in sixteenth-century French sources, though earlier origins have been claimed -- and long paired with pork for the way mustard and vinegar cut through its fat. The insistence that the meat be "thoroughly cooked" is consistent with period concern about pork and trichinosis, and long cooking times for pork persisted in English and American cookbooks well into the twentieth century.