Arnold Daly
NUT CHOPS
One cupful chopped nut meats, mixed: one cupful canned peas, one cupful dry bread crumbs, one onion chopped fine, one egg, not beaten, two tablespoonfuls milk, and salt and pepper to taste. Mix all very thoroughly and form into cakes or "chops" before frying in hot fat; a stick of macaroni may be pushed into each chop before frying to make it look more "choppy."
Serve with tomato or chili sauce.
These vegetarian chops are wonderful, but during my dinner I am always looking forward blissfully to dessert. Of these, I prefer vanilla ice cream and fresh strawberries.
A vegetarian cutlet of the nut-loaf family, held together by a single egg and dry crumbs. The mixture is loose by modern standards, so the handling matters more than anything else.
- The hinge: chill before fryingOne unbeaten egg and two tablespoons of milk is barely enough binder for three cups of solids. Mix, then refrigerate the mass for 30 minutes so the crumbs swell and the fat in the nuts firms up; cakes shaped from warm mixture fall apart in the pan.
- Bread crumbs"Dry bread crumbs" here means stale bread grated or rolled, which could range from fairly coarse to fine. If you use fine packaged crumbs, cut back slightly or the chops turn pasty.
- Canned peasCanned peas of the period were soft and usually salted. Drain thoroughly and blot, or the extra liquid will loosen the mixture; taste before adding salt. Thawed frozen peas work and hold their shape better, though they make a firmer, less cohesive chop.
- Nut meats, mixedThe recipe specifies only "mixed" and leaves the choice open. Chop by hand or pulse briefly; a food processor run too long makes nut butter and the chops go greasy.
- The macaroni "bone"A dry stick of macaroni pushed into each cake to mimic a cutlet bone. It stays hard through frying, so it is decoration only — warn anyone at the table, and pull it before eating.
- FryingThe recipe says only "hot fat". Shallow frying, roughly a quarter inch, at around 350-360F suits the mixture: too cool and the cakes absorb fat and slump; too hot and the nuts scorch before the interior sets. Three to four minutes a side to a deep brown.
- OnionRaw chopped onion will still be crunchy and sharp after a few minutes in the pan. Softening it in a little butter first, then cooling it, gives a rounder flavor and a more even texture.
- Yield and servingMakes six to eight chops, enough for three or four as a main course. The suggested tomato or chili sauce is not optional in spirit — the mixture is dry, and something acidic is needed to carry it.
Nut cutlets, nut chops and nut roasts were the standard vegetarian main course of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, promoted in Britain by the Vegetarian Society and in America by the sanitarium cookery associated with Battle Creek, where ground nuts were treated as a direct substitute for meat protein. The little theatrical touch of the macaroni bone was a common conceit of the period, of a piece with the era's fondness for one food dressed as another. Arnold Daly, the Irish-American actor best remembered for introducing Shaw's plays to New York audiences early in the century, contributed this recipe, and in such contributions the personal aside mattered as much as the method, which is why his stated preference for vanilla ice cream and strawberries survives in the text alongside the chops.