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Fried Cold Meat Sandwich
Place between thin slices of white bread, cold roast beef or lamb, chopped fine; season with pepper and salt. Mix with a little of the left-over gravy; dip in egg and milk and fry brown in butter. Serve hot.
A leftovers sandwich dipped in egg and fried — essentially savory French toast built around Sunday's roast. The whole thing hinges on the filling being moist enough to hold together but not wet enough to soak the bread from the inside.
- Chop, don't sliceThe meat is chopped fine on purpose: sliced roast beef slides out the moment you cut into the fried sandwich. Chop to a fine mince, as the recipe directs.
- How much gravy"A little" means just enough to make the mince cohere when pressed in the palm — roughly a tablespoon of cold gravy per half cup of meat. Cold, set gravy is easier to judge than warm, which will run.
- The dipNo proportions are given. One egg beaten with two tablespoons of milk coats two sandwiches. Dip briefly, both sides, and fry at once; a long soak turns white sandwich bread to paste.
- BreadThin slices of a firm white sandwich loaf, not an airy modern bakery loaf. Slightly stale bread holds the egg wash without collapsing. Press the edges together firmly before dipping so the filling stays put.
- Pan heatMedium heat, two to three minutes a side. The recipe calls for butter; if it darkens too fast for you, clarified butter or butter cut with a little neutral oil gives more margin.
- Season the meat, not the eggCold roast is bland and takes salt readily; this recipe seasons the filling and leaves the coating plain.
- YieldThe recipe gives no quantities; it describes the making of a single sandwich. Scale by the amount of roast on hand.
- ServingServe immediately; the crust softens within minutes.
Sandwich books proliferated in the first decades of the twentieth century, when the sandwich moved from tavern food to a respectable item at luncheons, teas and picnics, and publishers issued whole volumes of little else. This recipe belongs to the frugal end of the tradition: it exists to use up a roast and the gravy boat. The technique is the same one behind French toast and, in its ham-and-cheese form, the sandwich later sold as a Monte Cristo; savory versions of egg-dipped fried bread are much older than either name. Recipes like this show how thoroughly a period cook thought in terms of the second and third life of a piece of meat, an instinct that faded as refrigeration, smaller cuts and prepared foods made leftovers less central to menu planning. Read next Roast Beef Sandwich Roast Beef Sandwich No. 2 Pressed Mock Chicken Rare Beef Sandwich Sandwich (Chop hard-boiled eggs fine)