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Corned Beef Sandwich
Chop cold corn beef very fine, season with mustard and a dash of catsup. Place mixture on a lettuce leaf, between lightly buttered white bread.
A one-line filling that depends almost entirely on the texture of the chop and the balance of mustard to catsup. Two or three practical notes cover it.
- Chop, do not shredHand-chopping cold corned beef very fine gives a spread that holds together without paste. A food processor turns it to mush in seconds; pulse three or four times at most, or use a knife on a board.
- "Corn beef"The spelling is a period variant. It means beef cured in brine — often brisket, though other cuts were corned too — boiled and cooled, the leftovers of a boiled dinner, not deli pastrami. Sliced deli corned beef works if you chop it, though it is saltier and wetter.
- MustardAt the period this would be prepared yellow mustard or English mustard made up from powder. Start with a teaspoon per cup of chopped meat; corned beef is already salty and mustard sharpens that fast.
- CatsupTomato catsups of the period were often thinner, sharper and more spiced than modern ketchup. A dash means well under a teaspoon — enough to bind and sweeten, not enough to taste of tomato.
- Buttering mattersThe butter is structural as much as flavoring: it seals the crumb against the moisture in the meat. Butter both cut faces if the sandwich will sit more than a few minutes.
- Assembly orderLettuce against the bread, filling on the lettuce. Reversing it puts wet meat directly on the slice.
- YieldAbout a cup of chopped meat, roughly 6 oz, fills three sandwiches on standard sliced bread.
Sandwich books proliferated in the United States in the first decade of the twentieth century, aimed at the growing business of luncheons, teas, card parties and packed lunches, and many of their fillings make use of leftovers. Corned beef was a staple of the boiled dinner in American and Irish-American kitchens, cheap and long-keeping thanks to the brine cure, and a boiled brisket left far more meat than one meal required. A recipe like this one turns a cold joint into the next day's lunch: chop, sharpen with mustard and catsup, and no cooking required. The insistence on white bread, lightly buttered, and a lettuce leaf reflects the period's idea of a proper dainty sandwich — a formula that recurs repeatedly across these books with only the filling changed.