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Pork Chops, Bucharest
Trim off the stalk and outer leaves of a very small, red, sound cabbage, then cut it into quarters and remove the inside stalk and finely slice it. Sprinkle over it one tablespoon salt, then repeatedly turnover with the hands until free from water. Place in a saucepan, with a carrot cut in quarters, one onion cut in half and a two-ounce piece of salt pork. Season with half teaspoon white pepper, moisten with a pint of water; cover the pan and let boil for ten minutes. Set to bake in the oven for one hour. Remove, take up the pork, carrot and onion, keeping the pork for to-morrow. Drain off the water, then add two tablespoons freshly grated horseradish; mix well and keep hot. Neatly trim and flatten six pork chops; season with a teaspoon salt and half teaspoon paprika, then roll the chops in flour, dip in beaten eggs and then in bread crumbs. Heat in a frying pan two tablespoons lard, place the chops, one beside another, in the pan and fry for eight minutes on each side. Place the cabbage in the centre of a large dish; arrange the chops over, pour a cream sauce around the dish and serve.
A breaded chop over braised red cabbage, in the Central European manner. The original assumes an ovenproof lidded pan and gives no oven temperature; both need filling in.
- Oven temperatureFilippini gives none. An hour of covered braising suits a moderate oven, 325-350F. The pan must go from stovetop to oven, so use a Dutch oven or other lidded ovenproof pot.
- Salting the cabbageThe tablespoon of salt draws water out; "turn over with the hands until free from water" means working it for a few minutes, then squeezing and discarding the liquid. Skip this and the braise floods.
- Keeping the colourRed cabbage turns a dull blue-grey in alkaline conditions. A tablespoon or two of vinegar or a squeeze of lemon in the braising liquid holds it red; the recipe as written relies on nothing but the cabbage's own acidity.
- HorseradishFreshly grated and stirred in after the cabbage comes out of the oven, as written (the recipe then says to keep it hot). Its pungency is volatile and prolonged cooking flattens it. Jarred horseradish will work; drain it first and use rather more.
- The salt porkA two-ounce piece is a seasoning, not a component. Salt pork varies a good deal in saltiness, so taste before adding further salt to the cabbage. "Keeping the pork for to-morrow" is a thrift instruction, not a step.
- Frying timeEight minutes a side suits a substantial chop over gentle heat. Today's boneless chops run thin and will be dry long before that. Fry until the crumb is deep gold and the interior reads 145F, then rest; that is typically three to five minutes a side.
- Cream sauceIn this period generally a white sauce enriched with cream, poured around the dish rather than over the crumbed chops so the coating stays crisp. Roughly a cup for six servings.
- YieldSix chops, six servings, with the cabbage as the sole vegetable. Potatoes, boiled or mashed, go well alongside.
The International Cook Book is generally credited to Alexander Filippini, long associated with Delmonico's in New York, and gathers several thousand recipes drawn from many national cuisines. Dishes labelled for a city rather than a country, as here, were a common device in such books: the name signals a style more than a documented local recipe, and "Bucharest" here suggests the Central European pairing of a crumbed, fried cutlet with braised red cabbage and sharp horseradish. Romania's cooking in this period sat at the meeting point of Ottoman, Hungarian and Austrian influence, and the breaded chop is essentially a schnitzel treatment applied to pork. The horseradish, grated raw into the finished cabbage, is the most distinctly Central European touch.