Club Chicken Sandwiches

An assembly recipe rather than a cooked one: the whole of it is in the order of the layers and the condition of each component. No quantities are given because the sandwich is built one slice at a time.

• QuantitiesThe original lists ingredients without amounts, but it does say "one piece of each," so a single sandwich is two slices of toast around one slice of bacon, one slice of chicken, one slice of tomato and one leaf of lettuce. Increase at your own discretion.
• "Broiled" white meatBroiled is the period term for cooking under or over direct heat; the meat is breast, sliced. Poached, roasted or grilled all work; the point is that it is cold or barely warm and sliced thin enough to bite through cleanly.
• Toast, then butterThe instruction to butter the toast lightly after removing the crust is doing real work. A thin film of butter on both inner faces keeps tomato juice and mayonnaise from soaking the bread while the sandwich waits.
• TomatoSlice, lay on a paper towel and salt lightly for a few minutes, then blot. Undrained tomato is a common cause of a collapsed club.
• BaconCook until fully crisp and drain well. Limp bacon in a stacked sandwich tears the lettuce and slides out on the first bite.
• Order of the layersFollow the sequence given: bacon against the bottom toast, then chicken, tomato, lettuce, mayonnaise, top toast. Lettuce directly under the mayonnaise acts as a barrier between the dressing and the bread.
• MayonnaiseThe recipe says only "mayonnaise dressing" and does not specify homemade or bought; commercial mayonnaise was widely available by this period and is a direct substitute. If you make your own with raw yolk, use pasteurized eggs and keep the sandwich cold.
• Cutting and servingCut on the diagonal into halves or quarters; a pick pushed through the stack before cutting helps keep it from shifting, though the original says nothing about this. Makes one sandwich; serve at once.