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Walnut Cutlets
4 ounces bread crumbs 1 ounce shelled walnuts 1 teaspoon butter 1 teaspoon grated onion 1/2 teaspoon flour 1 teacup of milk White of 1 egg 1 lemon Run the bread crumbs and skinned walnuts through a nut mill. Then mix them in a basin with the butter and the grated onion. Melt a large teaspoon of butter in a saucepan with half a teaspoon of flour, and add the milk gradually. When this boils, add the other ingredients, pepper and salt to taste, and white of egg. When removed from the fire, add a teaspoon of lemon juice. Stir well, and turn out into a dish to cool, then shape into cutlets; dip in white of egg and bread crumbs, and fry in boiling oil. Serve with bread or tomato sauce.
A wartime-era nut cutlet built on a thick panada rather than egg or grain. The whole thing depends on getting the paste stiff enough to shape, so treat the cooling stage as the real work.
- The hinge: cool it hardThe mixture leaves the pan as a loose paste and will not hold a cutlet shape while warm. Spread it no more than an inch deep and refrigerate at least two hours, preferably until cold and firm all through; the original's "turn out into a dish to cool" assumes a cold larder, not a warm kitchen.
- A teacup of milkPeriod British measures were not fixed; a teacup is usually reckoned somewhere around 5 to 6 fl oz, with the breakfast cup larger. With 4 oz of crumbs this gives a stiff paste; add the milk gradually as directed and stop early if it looks slack.
- The butter contradictionThe ingredient list says one teaspoon, the method calls for "a large teaspoon" melted in the pan plus butter worked into the crumbs. Use about 2 teaspoons total, split between the two uses; the roux needs the fat more than the crumb mixture does.
- Two egg whites, not oneWhite of egg goes into the mixture and again into the coating. Buy accordingly: one white for the paste, a second beaten with a splash of water for dipping.
- Nut millA hand-cranked grinder that produced dry, even nut meal rather than butter. A food processor pulsed in short bursts does the same, but stop while the walnuts are still gritty; run it long and the oil releases and the paste turns greasy.
- Skinned walnutsThe papery skin carries the tannin and most of the bitterness. Blanching shelled halves in boiling water for a minute loosens the skin, though it seldom comes away cleanly; modern walnut pieces are mild enough that the step is often skipped.
- Frying"Boiling oil" means deep fat at 350-375F, not literally boiling. Fry in a single uncrowded layer for two to three minutes until the crumb coat is set and brown; the interior is already cooked and only needs heating through.
- Yield and servingFour ounces of crumbs and one ounce of nuts makes about four small cutlets, enough for two as a main course. The recipe itself offers a choice of bread or tomato sauce; the tomato cuts the richness of the fried crumb.
Nut cutlets of this kind belong to the vegetarian and food-economy cookery that flourished in Britain from the 1890s through the First World War, when meat was expensive, then rationed, and reform-minded societies were arguing that nuts could stand in for flesh as a source of protein. The dish is deliberately mimetic: the paste is shaped into the outline of a chop, breaded and fried, and served with the sauces a real cutlet would have had.