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SANDWICHES, SUPERIOR (for suppers and luncheons)
Cut the flesh of cooked fowl, game, or shell-fish into neat pieces. Lay these upon thin slices of toast, and cover them with suitable sauce made very thick so as to adhere. Mayonnaise sauce may be used for poultry and fish, and salmi sauce is suitable for game. Garnish the surface of the sandwiches with white of egg chopped small, finely-shredded tarragon leaves, and minced pickle or truffle. Dish the sandwiches in a circle, pile small salad or lettuces finely shredded in the centre, and place a border of clear aspic jelly cut into dice round the dish. Or mince cold game finely, and stir the mince into a little stiff salmi sauce. Minced mushroom, truffle, or tongue may be added if liked. Set the preparation upon ice, and when it is stiff put a layer between two slices of buttered bread. Serve in the usual way.
Two ideas in one entry: an open-faced sandwich on toast, dressed and garnished like a cold entrée, and a closed sandwich filled with chilled minced game. Both depend on the sauce being stiff enough to hold, which is the only real difficulty.
- The hinge: sauce thickness"Made very thick so as to adhere" means reduced or bound to the consistency of soft butter, not pourable. A thin sauce soaks the toast within minutes and the garnish slides off. For the minced version the mixture should be stiff enough to slice when cold.
- Salmi sauceA rich brown sauce built from the trimmings, bones and liver of the game bird, deglazed with wine and reduced; the recipe assumes the reader already knows how to make it. A modern equivalent is a reduced game or veal stock finished with red wine and a little butter.
- Mayonnaise and raw eggPeriod mayonnaise is raw yolk and oil, and these sandwiches are never heated. Use pasteurised eggs or a good bought mayonnaise if serving anyone elderly, pregnant or immunocompromised, and keep the assembled dish refrigerated until it goes to table.
- Aspic jellyClear savoury jelly set with gelatine from reduced stock, chilled and cut into dice as an edible garnish and border. Powdered gelatine at roughly 1 tbsp per 2 cups of well-flavoured clarified stock gives a jelly firm enough to dice.
- "Small salad"Victorian shorthand for young cutting greens and cress sown thickly and picked at seedling stage, not a side salad. Pea shoots, mustard cress or a fine mesclun stand in.
- Setting upon iceMeans a bowl over ice, or simply the refrigerator for 30-45 minutes. The mince must be properly cold and firm before it goes between buttered bread, or it will not cut cleanly.
- ToastCut thin and toast dry and crisp on both sides, then let it cool before saucing. Warm toast under mayonnaise turns limp fast.
- Yield and timingThe recipe specifies no quantities. As a rough modern guide, a cup of picked cooked meat with about half a cup of thick sauce will dress roughly 12 small toasts, enough for four as a light lunch. Assemble no more than an hour ahead.
This entry belongs to the late-Victorian idea of the "superior" or dressed sandwich, which had little to do with the portable bread-and-meat parcel and everything to do with using up the cold fowl, game and tongue left from a large dinner. Cassell's places it among suppers and luncheons because those were the informal meals of the day: supper after the theatre or a ball, luncheon for the ladies of the house, both traditionally built from cold larder food raised in status by sauce, aspic and careful garnishing. The garnishes here are the ones often met with in cold work: chopped white of egg for whiteness, tarragon for green, truffle or dark pickle for contrast, arranged so the plate read as decoration rather than leftovers. Salmi sauce, whose name is generally traced to the French salmis, is a reminder that game shooting supplied an English country household with more birds than it could eat hot, and that the second appearance of a pheasant or partridge was expected to look deliberate.