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Fried Pork Cutlets
Cut off all the skin and most of the fat from a loin of pork, and chop it up into cutlets, which place in a fryingpan with a lump of butter, and fry to a good golden brown color. In the meanwhile, put the bones, skin and any trimmings of bacon or ham, into a saucepan with a couple of onions cut into slices, and when they become well browned, pour over them sufficient water to nearly cover, and boil for two hours, then strain and skim off all fat; pour into another saucepan with a little isinglass to thicken it, and mix in a little browning to color. Brush the cutlets over with this glaze, put them on a dish and pour over a little tomato sauce, serving quickly.
A plain loin chop given a restaurant finish: the trimmings become a stock, the stock becomes a glaze, and the glaze is brushed on at the last moment. The stock takes two hours, so start it before the cutlets.
- Cutting the cutlets"Chop it up into cutlets" means portions cut from a loin; because the recipe sends the bones to the stockpot, the cutlets themselves are boned out. Have the butcher keep the bones, skin and trim for the stock.
- IsinglassA gelatin made from fish swim bladders, long used for clarifying and for jellies. Powdered or leaf gelatin does the same job — about 1 teaspoon of powder per cup of reduced stock gives a glaze that clings without setting into aspic on the plate.
- BrowningA caramel colouring, either made at home from burnt sugar or bought bottled as "browning" or "gravy browning" (Kitchen Bouquet and similar are still sold). It contributes colour and a faint bitterness and little else; a well-browned stock rarely needs it.
- Brown the trimmings firstThe dry browning of bones, skin and onion in the pan before water goes in is what makes the glaze taste of anything. Take them to a genuine deep brown, and deglaze the pan so the fond ends up in the stock.
- Skim, then reduceThe recipe says strain and skim but not reduce, which leaves the glaze thin. Chill the strained stock so the fat lifts off in a cake, then reduce it by half to two-thirds before adding gelatin.
- Pork donenessModern pork is leaner than 1896 pork and dries out fast. Fry to 145F at the center and rest five minutes — the meat will be faintly pink, which is correct; the long hard frying implied by "good golden brown" on both sides of a thick chop will overshoot it.
- Pan and fatButter alone browns and burns at frying heat. Use butter with a spoonful of neutral oil, or brown in oil and add butter at the end.
- Tomato sauceOscar assumes a kitchen with sauce tomate standing ready. Any plain reduced tomato sauce, unsweetened and lightly seasoned, serves; it goes under or around the cutlets so the brushed glaze stays visible.
This is hotel cooking in miniature — the logic of a professional kitchen, where nothing from the loin is thrown away and every plate gets a shine. Oscar Tschirky was maître d'hôtel of the Waldorf, not a chef, and The Cook Book by "Oscar" of the Waldorf (1896) is a vast compilation of the kind of dishes moving through such a kitchen, translated into terms a domestic cook might attempt. The glaze made from bones and trimmings, thickened with isinglass and tinted with bottled browning, belongs to the late nineteenth-century French service tradition that ran American hotel dining: meat was expected to arrive lacquered. Isinglass, a fish-derived gelatin long used for clarifying beer and wine as well as for jellies, was on its way out by then, displaced by commercially prepared gelatin, which is one reason the instruction reads as dated even where the technique does not.