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Chicken Sandwiches
Take cold boiled or roast chicken and chop it very fine, white meat the best. To every cupful add two tablespoon. fuls of melted butter, a saltspoonful of salt, and two dashes of white pepper, mix until smooth. Spread on thin slices of buttered bread, put two slices together, trim off the crusts and cut into neat squares, diamonds or strips.
A tea-table sandwich filling from the era before mayonnaise was a pantry staple: the binder here is melted butter, which sets firm when chilled and holds the chopped meat together.
- The hinge: butter must be soft, not hotMelted butter poured warm over cold chicken will set in greasy flecks rather than coating the meat. Take it just to the point of melting, or work in softened butter by hand, and mix until the mass holds together in a smooth paste.
- SaltspoonfulA saltspoon is a quarter teaspoon. Two dashes of white pepper is roughly an eighth of a teaspoon; white pepper would leave no dark specks in the pale filling, which may be why it was specified.
- Cupful of chickenAbout 5 oz of finely chopped cooked meat, or roughly the yield of one large breast. Two tablespoons of butter per cup is rich by modern taste; half that, with a spoonful of cream or chicken stock to loosen, gives a lighter filling.
- Serving in hot weatherButter-bound chicken sandwiches sitting out on a warm afternoon are a poor risk. Assemble cold, keep them covered and refrigerated, and hold them no more than a couple of hours at room temperature.
- YieldThe recipe gives no yield; on a thin spread, a cup of filling should cover about six slices of bread, so three sandwiches, or something like two dozen small squares or fingers once trimmed.