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Chipped Beef Sandwich
Chop chipped beef very fine and mix with a little mayonnaise; spread on thin slices of lightly buttered white bread.
A three-line tea sandwich that depends entirely on the salt level of the beef and the thinness of the bread.
- What chipped beef isSalt-cured beef dried and shaved into near-transparent sheets, sold in jars or vacuum packs near the canned meat. It is fully cured and ready to eat; nothing here needs cooking.
- Tame the saltModern jarred dried beef is aggressively salty. Cover the slices with hot water for a minute or two, drain and pat dry before chopping, or the filling will overwhelm the bread.
- No quantities givenThe recipe asks only for 'a little' mayonnaise. As a working starting point, try about 4 oz chipped beef with mayonnaise added a spoonful at a time until the mixture holds together and spreads rather than slumps.
- Chop, do not blitz"Very fine" means knife-fine or a few short pulses. Run it in a processor until smooth and you get a paste that tastes like potted meat rather than beef.
- The breadThin means thin: a close-crumbed white sandwich loaf, sliced about 1/4 inch, crusts off if serving for tea. Butter both faces lightly, which keeps the mayonnaise from soaking in.
- YieldThat quantity fills about six rounds, cut into twenty-four fingers or triangles. Assemble no more than an hour ahead and keep covered with a damp cloth in the refrigerator.
- Worth addingThe original is deliberately plain, but a scrape of prepared mustard, a grind of black pepper or a little minced pickle sits well against the cure and costs nothing in authenticity.
Chipped or dried beef was a staple of the American pantry long before refrigeration was general: lean beef salted, dried and shaved paper-thin kept for long periods and needed no cooking, which is why it turns up in creamed form on toast, in scrambled eggs, and here between buttered bread. Sandwich books of this era were written for a household that served afternoon tea, packed picnic baskets and put out late suppers after cards, and they favour fillings assembled from things already in the house. Mayonnaise binding a chopped cured meat recurs throughout the genre, applied in these collections to ham, tongue, chicken and beef with little variation. The absence of quantities is characteristic too, and suggests the reader was expected to know how a spreading mixture should look.