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Chicken Rolls
INGREDIENTS. 4 ounces from the breast of A few grains of cayenne. chicken (1/2 a cup). 4 ounces of braised tongue.
1 teaspoonful of anchovy paste. ½ a teaspoonful of celery 4 tablespoonfuls of mayonnaise or boiled dressing. salt.
Method. - Chop the meat and pound to a paste in a mortar; add the seasonings and mix well.
Remove the crust from a loaf of moist bread; cut in very thin slices, trim each slice into a rectangular shape, spread lightly with soft butter and then with the mixture. Roll the slices and tie them with ribbon. Omit the anchovy paste, if desired.
A potted-meat filling rolled in crustless bread — an afternoon-tea sandwich rather than lunch. The recipe's ingredient list is garbled by the original two-column typesetting, so read it as: 4 oz chicken breast, 4 oz braised tongue, a few grains of cayenne, 1 teaspoon anchovy paste, 1/2 teaspoon celery salt, 4 tablespoons mayonnaise or boiled dressing.
- The hinge: the breadRolled sandwiches only work with fresh, moist, close-grained white bread cut paper-thin; a dry or open crumb cracks the moment it curves. Chill the loaf briefly, cut with a long serrated knife, and if a slice resists, flatten it once with a rolling pin before spreading.
- Weights and the half-cupFour ounces of chicken breast is roughly half a cup once chopped, as the original notes — about one small poached or roasted breast. Four ounces of tongue is a couple of thick slices from the deli counter.
- Braised tongueUsually beef tongue, simmered until tender, peeled and pressed -- was a common cold cut in this period. Some delicatessens still sell it cooked and sliced; smoked tongue or a mild boiled ham gives a similar salty counterweight to the chicken if tongue is unavailable.
- Mortar to processorA food processor does in seconds what the mortar does in several minutes. Pulse the meats first, then add the dressing and seasonings, and stop while the paste still has a little texture rather than turning to glue.
- Boiled dressingThe alternative to mayonnaise here is boiled dressing, a period cooked sauce thickened with egg and flour and sharpened with vinegar — tangier and less rich. Plain mayonnaise is the simpler modern choice; add a squeeze of lemon if the filling tastes flat.
- Anchovy paste and celery saltBoth are still sold and both do real work: the anchovy supplies savour without reading as fish, the celery salt supplies most of the salt. Season at the end, since tongue and anchovy are already salty.
- Tying and holdingThe ribbon is decorative and does hold the roll shut, but a cocktail stick works and can be removed. Either way, wrap the finished rolls seam-down in a damp cloth or plastic and refrigerate at least an hour so they set into shape; serve within a day.
- YieldAbout a cup of filling, enough for something like 16 to 20 rolls from a small sandwich loaf, depending on how thinly it is spread.
Rolled sandwiches belong to the era of the formal afternoon tea, when a sandwich was meant to be small, easily handled, and pretty enough to sit on a doily. Janet McKenzie Hill edited the Boston Cooking School Magazine and compiled this book around the turn of the twentieth century for that kind of entertaining. The filling itself belongs to the tradition of potted meats -- cooked meat pounded in a mortar with butter and seasoning, a keeping technique that survived onto the tea table as a spread. Chicken with tongue was a common pairing in sandwich recipes of the period, the tongue giving colour and salt to bland breast meat. The anchovy paste is marked optional, which suggests not every eater was expected to welcome it.