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Mutton Chops with Mashed Potatoes
Neatly trim and flatten six tender mutton chops. Mix on a plate a tablespoon oil with teaspoon salt and half teaspoon pepper, repeatedly turn the chops in the seasoning, arrange on a broiler and cook for five minutes on each side. Dress mashed potatoes on a hot dish, pyramid-like, arrange the chops one overlapping another around the potatoes and serve.
A plain broiled chop with a potato centerpiece — the whole dish hinges on the meat being thin, well trimmed and cooked hot and fast. Two details need translating: what "broiler" meant, and where the potatoes come from.
- "Broiler" means a gridironIn this period a broiler usually meant a gridiron or hinged wire grid held over live coals, though gas ranges with overhead broilers were also in use by then. A modern overhead broiler set high, or a ridged grill pan, gives much the same effect; a gas or charcoal grill is closest of all.
- Mutton is not lambMutton is sheep over a year old — stronger in flavor, firmer, and rarely sold in American supermarkets. Halal and some ethnic butchers carry it; otherwise loin or rib lamb chops substitute directly, with a milder result and slightly faster cooking.
- Flatten, but not far"Neatly trim and flatten" means cutting away the excess fat skirt and giving the meat a light tap to even its thickness; something around 3/4 inch suits the timing given. Five minutes a side only works on a thin chop; a 1 1/2-inch cut will still be underdone at the bone on that timing.
- DonenessChops of this thickness reach medium at about 140F at the center, medium-well around 150F. Mutton fat sets and turns waxy as it cools, so both the platter and the plates want to be genuinely hot.
- The seasoning is a dry rub, not a marinadeOne tablespoon of oil with the salt and pepper is barely enough to coat six chops, which is the point — you want the surface slick, not wet, or it will steam rather than sear. Turn them in it just before cooking.
- The potatoes are assumedNo quantity is given for the mashed potatoes. For six chops, figure about 2 lb of floury potatoes, mashed stiff enough to hold a cone; a loose, cream-heavy mash will slump and the chops will slide.
- ServingSix chops serves three as a main course, two chops each. Mound the potatoes in the middle of a warmed platter and lean the chops against them with the bones outward, overlapping like a collar.
Broiled mutton chops with a pyramid of potato belong to the plain, restaurant-adjacent cooking of the period. Mutton was still ordinary meat in Britain and much of America when this was written; the shift to lamb followed sheep being bred primarily for meat and slaughtered young, alongside refrigerated imports and changing taste. The chop house — a whole category of English eating establishment named for this cut — traded on exactly this formula.