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Mutton Cutlets, with Mashed Potatoes
INGREDIENTS for dish for C persons. About 3 lbs. of the best ena ci the neck of mutton, salt and pepper to tasto, mashed potatoes. AVERAGE COST, 25. 40. INGREDIENTS for dish for 6 persons.—About 3 lbs. of the best end of the neck of mutton, salt and pepper to taste, mashed potatoes. AVERAGE COST, 2s. 4d.
Procure a well-hung neck of mutton, saw off about 3 inches of the top of the bones, and cut the cutlets of a moderate thickness. Shape them by chopping off the thick part of the chine-bone; beat them flat with a cutlet-chopper, and scrape quite clean a portion of the top of the bone.
Broil them over a nice clear fire for about 7 or 8 minutes, and turn them frequently.
MUTTON CUTLETS.
Have ready some smoothly-mashed white potatoes; place these in the middle of the dish; when the cutlets are done, season with pepper and salt; arrange them round the potatoes, with the thick end of the cutlets downwards, and serve very hot and quickly.
TIME.-7 or 8 minutes.
SEASONABLE at any time.
Note.-Cutlets may be served in various ways: with peas, tomatoes, onions, sauce piquant, &c.
A plain grill of neck cutlets, ringed around mashed potato. The whole success rests on the cut and on not overcooking it.
- The cut"Best end of neck" is what a modern butcher sells as a rack of lamb or lamb rib chops; in mutton it is the same rib section from an older sheep. About 3 lb bone-in gives roughly 8 cutlets, enough for four to six people alongside the potato.
- Mutton versus lambTrue mutton is sheep over two years old, stronger in flavour and firmer. It is sold by some halal and specialist butchers but rarely in supermarkets; lamb chops substitute directly and will cook at the shorter end of the time given.
- "Well-hung"Beeton assumes meat aged several days in a cool larder, which tenderises it and dries the surface. Vacuum-packed chops from a chiller are wetter; pat them thoroughly dry or they will steam rather than brown.
- Frenching the boneSawing 3 inches off the rib tips and scraping the exposed bone clean is purely for looks and for the diner's grip. The chine-bone is the piece of backbone at the thick end; trimming it lets the cutlet sit flat.
- Beating them flatA cutlet-chopper is a heavy flat-bladed cleaver. A meat mallet or the flat of a heavy knife does the same job. Even thickness matters more than thinness here, since the cooking time is so short.
- Broiling"Broil" in this book means grilling over a clear coal fire, not the modern American oven broiler. A ridged cast-iron grill pan on high heat, or a barbecue, is the closest equivalent; a very hot overhead grill also works.
- The timing is realSeven or eight minutes total, turned often, brings a moderately thick cutlet to pink in the centre. Push it to twelve and neck meat, which is lean around the rib, turns dry and stringy.
- Season after, not beforeBeeton seasons once the cutlets come off the fire. Salting the surface just before a very hot grill is also fine, but do not salt and let them stand, or moisture will be drawn out and browning suffers.
- ServingMound the mash in the centre and stand the cutlets around it, bones outward, meat end down. Everything must be hot at once, so have the potato finished and covered before the grill goes on.
Neck cutlets were a staple chop of the Victorian dinner table: cheap enough for a family meal, smart enough to dress up once the bones were scraped white and the cutlets stood in a ring. The arrangement Beeton describes, meat propped around a central mound, was a common dish-service device of the period, and it persisted in English cookery because it let a modest quantity of meat look like a composed dish. Her closing note, offering peas, tomatoes, onions or sauce piquant, is characteristic of the book's method: one basic cooking instruction, then a list of variations so the same cut need not appear the same way twice in a week. Mutton was then far more commonly eaten in Britain than lamb; the modern reversal, where lamb is standard and mutton hard to find, is generally attributed to faster-maturing breeds and year-round supply.