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Chops, Mixed Grill, and Fritto Misto
Nothing's more soul-satisfying than a man-sized mutton chop-not a sissy Mary's little lamb chop (and by the way, an Englishman is too refined to speak of his stomach as such, but refers to it mock modestly as "my little Mary). For grilling, have loin mutton chops cut 11/2-2-inches thick, trim off fat so it won't sputter and spoil things; grill on a fast fire, with a split kidney to keep each chop company and a big baked Idaho spud. You can eat your meat with sharp English mustard or imported East Indian chutney. Mutton chops are hard to get in many parts of the country, so you might go for an English mixed grill instead, which is really just an extension of the mutton chop grill, but with lamb chops substituted.
A grill built around one thick chop per person rather than a platter of thin ones. The whole method rests on getting a hard, clean fire and a chop cut thick enough to take it.
- Finding muttonMutton is sheep over a year old, and it is still scarce outside halal butchers, some farm shops and mail-order lamb producers. Ask for loin chops cut 1 1/2 to 2 inches thick; a supermarket loin chop is usually under an inch and will be dry before it colours.
- Fast fire, in practiceOn charcoal that means coals burned down to an even grey glow with no flame, hot enough that you can hold a hand 4 inches above the grate for only 2 to 3 seconds. On gas, high heat with the lid up.
- Timing and donenessA 2-inch loin chop wants roughly 6 to 8 minutes a side over that fire, to about 130-135F at the centre for pink. Mutton is stronger-tasting than lamb and turns dull and mealy if taken much past 145F.
- Trimming the fatThe instruction to trim is about flare-ups, not leanness. Leave a thin cap of about 1/8 inch and score it at intervals so it renders instead of curling and lifting the chop off the grate.
- The kidneyLamb or mutton kidneys need the outer membrane peeled and the white core cut out before splitting. Unlike the chop they should be cooked through, 3 to 4 minutes a side, and are often skewered flat so they do not curl.
- The baked potatoA large russet takes about an hour at 425F, or 45 to 60 minutes buried in the edge of the coals wrapped in foil. Start it well before the chops go on.
- Mixed grill, if mutton fails youThe English version is loin lamb chops plus some combination of kidney, a thick slice of gammon or bacon, a good sausage, mushrooms and halved tomatoes. Stage them by cooking time: sausages first, chops and kidney next, mushrooms and tomatoes last.
- CondimentsSharp English mustard means the hot powdered sort mixed with cold water and rested about 10 minutes; ready-made jarred versions are generally milder. Major Grey-style mango chutney is the most widely available of the sweet chutneys sold in America as East Indian.
- YieldOne thick chop and one kidney per person, with a potato each.
The mutton chop with a grilled kidney beside it was a fixture of nineteenth-century English chophouses and gentlemen's clubs, where the point was a single thick cut cooked hard over open coals rather than a plate of thin cutlets. American cookery drifted away from mutton over the twentieth century as the wool trade shrank and buyers came to prefer the milder flavour of young lamb, which is why the book concedes that mutton chops are hard to get and offers the mixed grill as a substitute. The joke about "my little Mary" is drawing on a piece of Edwardian slang for the stomach, generally traced to the London stage, and it marks this as a period when American outdoor cooking writers still looked to England for the idea of hearty, unfussy men's food.