Mutton Chops
Season with salt and pepper, put in skillet, cover closely, and fry five minutes, turning over once; dip each chop in beaten egg, then in cracker or bread-crumbs, and fry till tender or nicely browned on each side; or put in oven in a dripping-pan, with a little water, salt and pepper; baste frequently and bake until brown. To broil lamb chops, trim neatly, broil over a clear fire, season with pepper and salt, and serve with green pease.
Three methods in one paragraph: pan-fried and crumbed, oven-baked, or plain broiled. The first is the odd one out — the chops are half-cooked before they are breaded, which is deliberate and worth understanding before you start.
- The hinge: par-fry, then crumbThe initial covered five minutes renders fat and firms the surface so the egg-and-crumb coating clings and browns quickly rather than sitting on wet raw meat. Let the chops cool a minute before dipping or the egg will slide off.
- Cut and thicknessNineteenth-century mutton chops came from the loin, rib or shoulder of a mature sheep, generally darker, fattier and stronger-tasting than modern lamb. Supermarket loin or rib lamb chops, about 1 inch thick, are the practical substitute and will cook faster than the original intends.
- Doneness, not minutesThe recipe says "till tender," which suited tough mutton. Lamb chops are best pulled at 130–135F internal for medium-rare and rested five minutes; the crumbed version will take roughly 3–4 minutes a side after the initial fry.
- "Cover closely"A tight lid steams as much as it fries, which is what old mutton needed. With lamb, cover for the first two minutes only, then uncover so the fat browns rather than stews.
- The oven methodNo temperature is given, and the book does not call for a "moderate oven" here. Around 350F in a dripping-pan works in practice, basting every ten minutes or so to satisfy the recipe's "baste frequently"; the little water most likely keeps the drippings from scorching rather than poaching the meat. Top it up if it dries.
- Cracker crumbsThese meant crushed soda or water crackers, drier and coarser than modern fine breadcrumbs. Either works; season the crumbs, since the recipe seasons only the meat.
- "A clear fire" for broilingCoals burned down past the flame, with no smoke. A gas or charcoal grill at high heat, or an oven broiler with the rack about 4 inches from the element, gives the same fierce dry heat.
- Yield and servingThe recipe gives no yield; two chops per person is a reasonable figure. The recipe finishes the broiled lamb chops with "green pease"; how they were dressed is not stated.
Mutton was the everyday sheep meat of the nineteenth-century American table, and the distinction this recipe draws — mutton chops fried or baked, lamb chops broiled — is a distinction of toughness. Mutton comes from an animal over a year old and repays slower, moister, covered cooking; lamb is tender enough to take the direct heat of the gridiron. The Dixie Cook Book belongs to the great family of late-century compiled American household manuals, which are often said to have stacked two or three methods for a single cut into one dense paragraph, leaving the cook to choose according to what meat and what fire she had. The egg-and-crumb treatment here reflects the period's fondness for what was often called "breaded" chops, a way of dressing up a plain cut for company. Mutton has largely disappeared from American butcher counters over the past century, one reason the two halves of this recipe now read as though they describe the same thing.