Home › Chafing-Dish Dainties › Pan-Broiling
Pan-Broiling
Chops, birds, venison, hamburg, sirloin and other steaks, even spring chickens, may be cooked successfully in the chafing-dish; but they are not the dishes upon which an amateur should begin his experiments. Heat the blazer very hot, brush over the surface with a brush dipped in olive oil (or use a butter-ball and a fork), lay in the article to be cooked, sear upon one side, turn and sear upon the other; repeat, turning and cooking until done to taste; five minutes will suffice for small lamb chops. Serve with 1 Maître d'Hôtel Butter.
Beat four tablespoonfuls of butter to a cream; add half a teaspoonful of salt and a few grains of pepper, also one tablespoonful of parsley, chopped very fine, and one tablespoonful of lemon juice, very slowly.
Réchauffés and Olla-Podrida.
This is a technique note rather than a fixed recipe, with a maître d'hôtel butter tacked on at the end. The whole thing depends on getting a small, thin pan hotter than a spirit lamp really wants to make it.
- The blazerThe blazer is the shallow metal pan that sits directly over the flame of a chafing dish, without the hot-water bath underneath. For pan-broiling you remove the water pan entirely; the food must meet dry metal at high heat. A heavy skillet on a burner does the same job and does it better.
- Heat is the hingeAn alcohol or Sterno flame delivers a fraction of the heat of a gas ring, and a thin blazer sheds it the moment cold meat lands. Preheat until a drop of water skitters and vanishes, cook one or two chops at a time, and expect the pan to need a minute to recover between turns. A crowded blazer steams the meat grey.
- "Hamburg"Period shorthand for ground beef formed into patties, not a dressed sandwich. "Birds" means small game birds such as quail or squab, split and flattened.
- Spring chickensA spring chicken was a young bird, generally only a couple of pounds, and even split it needs to reach 165F throughout. That is more sustained heat than a chafing dish reliably gives, which is part of why the author warns amateurs off. Bone-in poultry is the worst candidate on this list.
- Doneness"Done to taste" for lamb or beef means 130-135F for medium-rare at the centre; the five minutes quoted suits chops no more than three-quarters of an inch thick. Venison is very lean and goes dry past medium-rare.
- Maître d'hôtel butterFour tablespoons is half a stick, or 2 oz. Add the lemon juice a few drops at a time into the creamed butter, as directed, or the emulsion breaks and weeps. It makes enough for four to six chops; roll it in parchment and chill if you want firm slices to melt over the meat.
- The trailing words"Réchauffés and Olla-Podrida" is a section heading from the original book that has been swept into the end of the paragraph. It is not an instruction.
Pan-broiling — searing in a dry, lightly greased pan rather than over coals — was the compromise the late-Victorian table made with the chafing dish, an appliance sold for tableside cookery and given as a wedding present around 1900. Chafing-dish books often lean on creamed and stewed dishes because a spirit lamp suits gentle heat; the author's warning that steaks and chops "are not the dishes upon which an amateur should begin" is an honest admission of the equipment's limits. The finishing butter is named for the maître d'hôtel, a title used for the head of a household as well as of a dining room, and it is often said that the name reflects a sauce assembled front-of-house, where nothing more than a bowl, a spoon and a lemon was available.