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Pan-broiled Chops
Chops for pan broiling should have flank and most of fat removed. Wipe chops and put in hissing hot frying-pan. Turn as soon as under surface is seared, and sear other side. Turn often, using knife and fork that the surface may not be pierced, as would be liable if fork alone were used. Cook eight minutes if liked rare, ten to twelve minutes if liked well done. Let stand around edge of frying-pan to brown the outside fat. When half cooked, sprinkle with salt. Drain on brown paper, put on hot platter, and spread with butter or serve with Tomato or Soubise Sauce.
A dry-pan method that still works exactly as written, though a few of the instructions were shaped by a coal range and by cuts thicker than most supermarkets sell.
- The hinge: a genuinely hot, dry pan"Hissing hot" points to a pan hot enough to sear on contact; a drop of water skittering rather than sitting is a rough modern test of that. No fat is added; the chop's own trimmed fat and the seared surface do the work. A heavy cast-iron or carbon-steel skillet holds that heat when the cold meat goes in; thin nonstick does not, and will steam the chops grey.
- Chop thickness is unstatedThe timings imply a fairly thick loin or rib chop, perhaps 1 to 1 1/4 inches. Thin 1/2-inch chops from a supermarket tray will be past well done in five or six minutes, so judge by internal temperature rather than the clock.
- Doneness by thermometerModern targets: about 125-130F at the center for rare, 140-150F for medium to medium-well, which is roughly the range the eight-minute and ten-to-twelve-minute timings are aiming at. Pull the chops 5F short and let them rest three or four minutes, which the original does not mention.
- Turning oftenFrequent turning is now well supported — it cooks more evenly and does not cost you browning. The instruction to use knife and fork rather than spearing with a fork alone is sound; tongs or a spatula do the same job more easily.
- Salt timingThe recipe salts at the halfway point without saying why. Salting 40 minutes ahead, or immediately before the chop hits the pan, browns just as well; what you want to avoid is salting a wet chop and letting it sit five minutes.
- "Let stand around edge of frying-pan"The point is to bring the fat edge into contact with the hot pan. On a modern burner, stand the chops on their fat edge for a minute or two to render and crisp it.
- Brown paperUnbleached grocery paper was the standard drain. Use paper towels or, better, a wire rack, so the crust does not sit in its own fat.
- Soubise sauceAn onion pur"and the book gives it elsewhere, since the recipe refers to it. Tomato sauce or a knob of plain butter is the simpler option.
- YieldThe recipe gives no yield; figure on one or two chops per person depending on size. Do not crowd the pan, or the surface temperature collapses.
"Pan-broiling" is an American kitchen term of the nineteenth century for cooking in a dry, very hot pan with no added fat — the closest a cook could come to broiling over coals when the fire was shut inside a cast-iron range. Fannie Farmer's Boston Cooking-School Cook Book appeared in 1896. Mutton — meat from a sheep over a year old, strongly flavored and now rare in American markets — is itself a small record of how much has narrowed: a Boston household in the 1890s could expect both it and lamb.