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Mutton Chops, Puree of Chestnuts
Neatly trim and lightly flatten six French mutton chops. Season them all around with a teaspoon salt and half teaspoon pepper, roll in a tablespoon of oil, arrange on broiler and broil on lively charcoal fire for four minutes on each side. Remove, arrange puree of chestnuts pyramid-like on a hot dish, dress the chops around, one over-lapping another crown-like, adjust a frill of paper at the end of each chop and serve.
A two-part dish in which only one part is actually written down: the chops are the recipe, the chestnut puree is assumed to be already at hand elsewhere in the book. Read the timing as a guide for thin frenched chops over a very hot fire, not as a rule.
- French chopsThese are rib chops with the bone scraped bare for an inch or two, and were generally cut fairly thin, which is consistent with four minutes a side being enough. A modern loin chop cut an inch and a half thick will need considerably longer, or a cooler zone to finish in.
- Mutton versus lambMutton means sheep over about two years old, stronger in flavour and firmer than lamb. It is sold in some halal and specialist butchers but rarely elsewhere; lamb rib chops substitute directly and cook faster.
- Lively charcoal fireA bed of coals burned down to grey ash and glowing hard, with the grate close over it. On a gas grill, direct high heat with the lid down; under a domestic broiler, preheat ten minutes and set the pan as close as it will go.
- DonenessFour minutes a side over that heat gives a browned surface and a pink centre, roughly 130-135F. Mutton is at its best there; taken past 150F it turns dry and the tallowy note comes forward.
- SeasoningA teaspoon of salt and half a teaspoon of pepper for six chops is about right, but season just before the chops go on the fire so the surface stays dry enough to brown.
- The chestnut pureeNot given here. In practice: peeled chestnuts simmered in stock or milk until tender, drained, passed through a sieve or ricer, then beaten with butter and a little of the cooking liquid until it holds a shape. It must be stiff enough to mound; vacuum-packed cooked chestnuts save an hour of peeling.
- AssemblyEverything is served hot and immediately, so the puree should be finished and kept warm before the chops go near the fire. The chops are simply dressed around the mound, each overlapping the next.
- Paper frillsPurely decorative cuffs of cut paper slipped over the bare bone, standard in period service and long since optional. Skip them without loss.
- YieldSix chops serves three as a main course, or six as a course in a longer menu of the kind this book assumes.
The crown-like arrangement of overlapping frenched chops around a central mound belongs to the French restaurant service that dominated hotel and club cooking in Europe and America before the First World War, and The International Cook Book, compiled by Alexander Filippini out of that world, is full of such platings. Chestnuts and mutton are a seasonal pairing rather than an arbitrary one: the nuts come in with late autumn, and the sweet starchy puree offsets a meat that period cooks freely called strong. Mutton was ordinary eating in 1900 and has since all but vanished from English-speaking markets, squeezed out by a preference for young lamb, which is why a dish that once needed no explanation now reads as unfamiliar.