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Chicken Sandwiches
Cut thin slices of white bread slightly buttered, and spread with thin slices of the breast of cold chicken; sprinkle lightly with salt and pepper, cover the chicken with mayonnaise or any other thick salad dressing, then with another slice of bread. Press lightly together and cut in two across the slice.
A plain cold-chicken sandwich from the era when a roast fowl was expected to reappear at tea. Nothing here is obsolete, but a few points make the difference between this and a soggy lunch.
- Slice, don't shredThe recipe calls for thin slices of breast, carved against the grain, not chopped or pulled meat. Sliced breast lies flat and keeps the sandwich thin enough to eat in the hand, which is the whole point of the form.
- Butter both slicesThe original says only that the bread is "slightly buttered" and does not specify how many faces; butter on the inner face of both slices is what keeps mayonnaise from soaking the crumb. Have it soft enough to spread without tearing the bread.
- Dressing on the meat, not the breadThe recipe puts the mayonnaise over the chicken rather than the bread. Whatever the reason, it seasons the meat and leaves the buttered bread between dressing and crumb.
- Chill the bird firstCold chicken carves in clean thin slices; warm chicken tears. Refrigerate the cooked breast thoroughly before slicing, and keep the finished sandwiches cold until served.
- BreadA close-crumbed white sandwich loaf, a day old, cuts thinner and holds together better than fresh. Crusts were often trimmed for tea sandwiches, though this recipe does not require it.
- Salad dressing"Any other thick salad dressing" most likely points to a cooked "boiled" dressing thickened with egg and starch rather than a thin bottled vinaigrette; the recipe's own first choice is mayonnaise.
- YieldCutting -- Cut across the slice, not corner to corner, as written. The recipe states no yield.
Sandwiches of this kind belong to the late nineteenth and early twentieth century vogue for afternoon tea and the ladies' luncheon. The dish reads as a leftovers recipe: the breast was the choice cut of a roast fowl, saved back from dinner and served cold. Its pairing with mayonnaise is a period marker in itself u2014 mayonnaise was not widely sold in jars in American kitchens until around the 1910s, so a cook following this page would most likely have whisked her own or fallen back on a cooked "boiled dressing" of the kind "any other thick salad dressing" would cover.