Mutton Chops
Mutton chops should not be less than one inch thick. They should be oiled on both sides and broiled, being turned very often. Have them slightly underdone, and serve on a hot chop dish, garnishing with French fried potatoes and sprigs of parsley.
A four-line recipe that assumes a coal range with a broiling grid and a butcher who cuts mutton. The method is sound; the terms and the meat need translating.
- Find the meatTrue mutton — sheep over about two years — is scarce outside halal and specialist butchers. Lamb loin or rib chops cut a full inch thick behave the same way on the grill; mutton will simply taste stronger and want a little more time.
- "Oiled" means a thin filmThis is a coating to prevent sticking and encourage browning, not a marinade. Wipe the chops dry first, then brush lightly with a neutral oil and season with salt and pepper, which the recipe silently assumes.
- Broiled means over direct heatIn the period a chop was broiled on a grid set close to glowing coals. A modern gas or charcoal grill, or a ridged cast-iron pan over high heat, reproduces this. An overhead oven broiler also works with the rack near the element.
- Turning very oftenThis is the hinge, and it is not old-fashioned fussiness: frequent turning, every 30 to 45 seconds or so, helps a thick chop cook evenly and keeps the outside from charring before the centre warms through.
- Slightly underdone, in numbersFor a one-inch chop this is roughly 6 to 8 minutes total over high heat, to an internal temperature of 130–135°F for medium rare. Whole-muscle lamb and mutton are safe served pink; rest the chops five minutes before serving.
- Chop dish and garnishA "hot chop dish" was a serving platter warmed before use, some patterns having a hot-water well beneath — warm any serving plate, since lamb fat congeals fast. French fried potatoes here are fried potatoes, cut and fried as a side.
Mutton was still an everyday meat in American and British kitchens when Butterick published this, and the plain broiled chop was the standard of good, unfussy cooking that a hotel grill room or a club could be judged by. The insistence on an inch of thickness and on serving it underdone is a quiet argument against the era's habit of cooking mutton grey and hard. Mutton's decline in the United States is often attributed to the two world wars, when soldiers were fed a great deal of tough, strongly flavoured sheep and came home refusing it, after which lamb — younger, milder, faster to market — took over almost entirely. That the recipe wastes no words on seasoning or timing suggests it was written for a cook who needed only reminding of the thickness and the turning.