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Mutton Chops, Broiled
INGREDIENTS.-Loin of mutton, pepper and salt, a small piece of butter. AVERAGE COST, 1s. per lb.
Cut the chops from a well-hung tender loin of mutton, remove a portion of the fat and trim them into a nice shape; slightly beat and level them; place the gridiron over a bright clear fire, rub the bars with a little fat and lay on the chops.
Whilst broiling, frequently turn them and in about 8 minutes they will be done.
Season with pepper and salt, dish them on MUTTON COLLOPS. a very hot dish, rub a small piece of butter on each chop, and serve very hot and expeditiously.
TIME. About 8 minutes.
SEASONABLE at any time.
A plain gridiron chop, and the method still works: high dry heat, frequent turning, butter at the end. The only real change is that most cooks now use a ridged grill pan or a charcoal grill rather than a gridiron over an open coal fire.
- The hinge: a truly hot surfaceThe bars must be hot enough to sear on contact, and greased so the meat releases cleanly. A chop laid on a warm gridiron will stew in its own juice and go grey before it colours.
- What cut to buyChops cut from the loin are what we now call loin chops; a Barnsley chop is a double chop cut right across the saddle. Ask for them about 1 in. thick; thinner chops will cook noticeably faster than the stated time.
- Frequent turningTurning every minute or so is not an eccentricity; it cooks the chop more evenly and keeps the surface from scorching while the centre comes up.
- Eight minutesThat suits a 1 in. chop taken to pink in the middle, around 130–135F. Lamb loin is lean and turns dry and grey past 145F, so go by feel or a probe rather than the clock.
- The fat edgeTrim the fat back but leave a thin band, and stand the chops on that edge for a minute first to render it. Dripping fat on live coals will flare, so keep a cool zone on the grill to move them to.
- "Well-hung"Butchers once hung mutton for a week or more to tenderise it. Modern lamb is sold much younger and aged briefly if at all; nothing needs doing about this, but it explains why the original expects more flavour from a bare chop.
- Season after, butter afterSalt and pepper go on at the end here, then a knob of butter melts over the hot meat. Warm the serving dish — lamb fat sets on a cold plate almost immediately.
- QuantityAllow one large chop or two small ones per person; the recipe gives no yield.
Broiling — cooking on a gridiron over clear, flameless coals — was the everyday English method for chops and steaks long before the domestic gas grill arrived, and the chop-house built an entire trade on it. Mutton, from a sheep of two years or more, was the ordinary meat of Victorian Britain, cheaper and stronger-flavoured than lamb, and the loin chop was a standard bachelor's or club dinner: quick, unsauced, and served on a very hot plate. The insistence on serving "expeditiously" is often taken to reflect the distances food had to travel in large houses, from a basement kitchen to a distant dining room, though that reading is a plausible inference rather than a documented one. Mutton has since largely vanished from British butchers' counters in favour of lamb, which is why the same recipe made today tastes considerably milder than the original intended.