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English Mutton Chops
Have six, fine, tender, lean English mutton chops, half pound each; neatly trim, then envelop them in a coarse towel, nicely flatten with a cleaver to round forms, roll on a plate with one tablespoon oil. Season well all over with a tablespoon salt and half teaspoon white pepper. Arrange on a broiler and broil for eight minutes on each side. Dress on a hot dish, decorate with a little watercress and serve.
A plain broiling recipe whose success depends almost entirely on the cut and on how hard your heat is. Two things in the original need translating: the chops themselves, and the seasoning quantity.
- What an "English chop" isNot a supermarket loin chop. It is a thick chop cut across the whole saddle, bone in the centre and the tail of the flank wrapped around it and skewered — the cut now often sold as a Barnsley chop. Ask a butcher for a double loin chop, about 1 1/4 to 1 1/2 in. thick, to reach the half pound specified.
- Mutton versus lambMutton is sheep over two years old: darker, firmer, distinctly stronger in flavour. Almost all lamb sold now is under a year, so the dish will be milder and will cook slightly faster. Halal and Caribbean butchers are the likeliest source of real mutton.
- Flattening in the towelThe point of the cleaver-and-cloth is to even the thickness so the chop broils uniformly, and to press it into a round so the flank tail stays put. Use the flat of a heavy knife or a mallet, and do not thin it past about an inch or the interior will be dry before the outside colours.
- The saltA tablespoon of salt across six half-pound chops works out to about 1 teaspoon per pound of meat. That is on the heavy side by modern taste, and heavier still if you use fine salt rather than a coarse one; season more lightly if you are unsure.
- "A broiler"At this date a broiler was usually a hinged wire grid set over live coals, with the heat below and the fat dripping away, though overhead gas broilers were also in use. Under a modern overhead broiler, use the top rack with a slotted pan; on a grill, direct high heat over a drip-free zone. Dripping fat will flare.
- Eight minutes a sideSixteen minutes total is a long time for a chop of this thickness by modern standards and will take it well past rare; the period taste for mutton ran to more done. On a lamb chop of the same weight, check at five to six minutes a side; pull at 130-135F for medium rare and rest five minutes.
- Oil on the plateRolling the chops in a spoonful of oil rather than brushing it on coats the edges and the bone as well, which matters when the heat is fierce. Use a neutral oil; olive oil at broiler temperature will smoke.
- Yield and servingSix chops serves six as a main course. The recipe treats the watercress as decoration; if you want to eat it, its pepperiness makes a good foil to mutton fat and it takes well to a little salt and lemon or vinegar.
The thick double loin chop was a fixture of Victorian and Edwardian chophouses and gentlemen's clubs, where the cooking was done over coals and the menu ran to a handful of grilled items and a bottle of claret. "English" cookery meant precisely this o sauce, a sprig of watercress o sauce, a sprig of watercress. Mutton was then the ordinary sheep meat of Britain and much of the United States, lamb the luxury of spring; the near-disappearance of mutton from English-speaking markets over the following century is why the recipe reads leaner and blander today than it once tasted. The named cut most associated with this style, the Barnsley chop, is generally traced to Yorkshire coaching-inn practice, though the attribution is traditional rather than documented.