No. 811

Sandwiches

Sandwichs

To prepare the butters for these sandwiches mix it well with salt, red pepper and mustard, if needed for mustard butter; for the anchovy butter add a little essence of anchovy to it, and for foies-gras butter have half foies-gras and half butter pounded and pressed through a sieve. Cut some slices of bread-crumb from a compact loaf without any holes, having each one five-sixteenths of an inch in thickness, and four inches square. These slices of bread may be toasted and allowed to cool, instead of using them direct from the loaf; in both cases, spread over them some mustard butter, as explained above, when used for meats and poultry; use foies-gras butter for game and anchovy butter (No. 569) for fish and crustaceans, but either one or the other can be used, except foies-gras, as there is no special rule to follow for buttering sandwiches. Garnish the bread with thin slices of meat well pared and free of all fat; on top of this meat lay another slice of buttered bread, then press them down flat one on top of the other; for the oblongs cut them four inches square then straight through the center, and for the triangles across from the two opposite corners. Dress them in pyramids; for the oblong ones cut away the corners, and bevel the edges, but for the triangles merely bevel them.

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For the Modern Kitchen

Ranhofer is describing a system rather than a single sandwich: three compound butters, a standard slice, and a set of cuts for arranging them on a platter. The hinge is the butter — it seasons the sandwich and seals the crumb against the moisture of the filling, so it must be soft enough to spread without tearing the bread.

The three buttersMustard butter is softened butter beaten with salt, cayenne ("red pepper") and prepared or dry mustard to taste; the book gives no proportions, so season to your own palate. Anchovy butter takes anchovy essence — the closest modern equivalent is anchovy paste, added a little at a time and tasted as you go. Foie gras butter is half foie gras and half butter pounded together and forced through a sieve; a food processor does this in seconds.
Essence of anchovyA commercial bottled liquid extract of salted anchovies. Anchovy paste is the nearest substitute; its strength differs from the Victorian bottled essence, so add it gradually and taste. Alternatively mash two oil-packed fillets into 4 ounces of butter.
Foie grasSold now as whole cooked lobe, bloc, or mousse; the mousse is already butter-enriched and needs less added butter. Production is banned or restricted in some jurisdictions — a good chicken liver parfait behaves identically in this butter.
The sliceFive-sixteenths of an inch is about 8 mm, thinner than standard sandwich bread. A dense white pain de mie or unsliced sandwich loaf cut by hand is what "compact loaf without any holes" means; open-crumbed artisan bread lets the butter through and collapses under pressing.
Bread-crumbHere it means the crumb of the loaf as opposed to the crust — the crusts are trimmed away, not used. It does not mean crumbs.
Toasting and coolingToasted slices must cool completely before buttering, or the butter melts into the bread and the sandwich turns greasy and limp. Cooling on a rack rather than a plate keeps the underside dry.
PressingThe recipe says only to press the slices down flat, one on top of the other, before cutting. Compacting the layers helps the knife cut cleanly rather than dragging the filling out, which is what leaves edges tidy enough to bevel.
The cutsA four-inch square halved straight across gives two oblongs; halved corner to corner gives two triangles. "Bevel the edges" means paring the cut edges at a slight angle so the pyramid stacks neatly — a cosmetic step for a buffet platter, skippable otherwise.
YieldThe original gives none: quantities of bread, butter and meat are left entirely to the cook, and depend on how many the platter is to serve.

A Little History

The Epicurean (1894) is Charles Ranhofer's record of thirty-odd years as chef at Delmonico's in New York, and this entry shows how a professional kitchen thought about sandwiches in the 1890s: not as a lunch but as a cold side dish, cut small, trimmed square and built into pyramids for a buffet or supper table. The pairing rules — mustard butter for meat and poultry, foie gras butter for game, anchovy butter for fish and shellfish — are the same logic that governed sauces in the hot kitchen, and Ranhofer's shrug at the end ("there is no special rule to follow for buttering sandwiches") is about as close as he comes to informality. The buttering itself was practical as well as flavourful: fat on the crumb slows the filling's moisture from soaking through, which matters when trays are made in advance. The sandwich is generally traced to the fourth Earl of Sandwich in the 1760s, but its arrival on a formal American menu as a garnished, geometrically cut item belongs to precisely this generation of hotel and restaurant cooking.