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Broiled Loin Chops
Trim loin chops, skewer in rounds, and proceed as with Broiled French Chops.
A two-line entry that assumes you have already read the preceding recipe for Broiled French Chops. What it is really describing is the classic treatment of a loin chop: bone it, curl the flank tail around the eye of meat, and pin it into a neat round before it meets the fire.
- What kind of chopUnqualified "loin chops" in a broiling recipe of this period most likely means lamb or mutton, the usual subject of broiled chops; pork chops were normally cooked through rather than broiled rare.
- "Skewer in rounds"Trim the thin flap of flank from the tail end, wrap it snugly around the meaty eye of the chop, and secure it with a short metal skewer or a soaked toothpick. This gives an even thickness so the chop cooks through at one rate rather than overcooking at the thin end.
- French chops for comparisonA "French chop" is a rib chop with the bone scraped bare — what a butcher now calls frenched. The loin chop has no long bone to clean, hence the skewering.
- The heatBroiling at this date normally meant a greased gridiron over live coals, which is presumably what the cross-reference assumes. A cast-iron grill pan or ridged skillet brought to the point where a drop of water skitters, or a well-preheated oven broiler, gives the same fast surface char.
- Timing and donenessA chop about an inch thick wants roughly 3 to 4 minutes a side, to 130–135F for medium rare. Lamb was generally taken further in this period than is usual today; go by the thermometer.
- HandlingTurn with tongs, not a fork, and do not press the chops down. Season with salt and pepper as they come off the heat, and pull the skewers before serving.
- YieldTwo chops per person for a main course, one if they are part of a longer menu. Rest them three or four minutes on a warm plate.
Lowney's Cook Book was issued in the first decade of the twentieth century by the Walter M. Lowney Company of Boston, a chocolate manufacturer, and like other maker-sponsored books of the period it padded out its chocolate formulas with a full general household cookery course — hence a Meats chapter written in the terse, cross-referencing style of the Boston cooking-school tradition, where recipes were taught in families and each new one leaned on the last. The loin chop earns its own entry: rib chops could be frenched and dressed up with paper frills for company, while the loin chop, with its tail of flank, had to be tied or skewered into a presentable round. The technique of broiling over clear coals on a greased gridiron was still the default for chops in American kitchens at a time when many ranges burned coal and a broiler drawer was not yet standard.