Lamb Sandwich
To three cups of cold cooked lamb, chopped fine, add three tablespoonfuls of Parmesan cheese, one teaspoonful of mustard, a dash of salt and pepper, and a little mayonnaise dressing; mix until smooth. Place this on lettuce leaf between slices of lightly buttered white bread.
A cold-lamb spread of the kind that turned Sunday roast leftovers into Monday lunch. The only real decisions are how fine to chop and how much dressing to add.
- YieldThree cups of chopped meat plus dressing makes roughly six to eight generous sandwiches. The mixture will keep a day, covered, in the refrigerator.
- "Chopped fine" is not groundThe period method is a knife or a hand-cranked food chopper, which leaves distinct shreds. A food processor pulsed too long gives paste; six or seven short pulses, or a few minutes with a heavy knife, is the texture intended.
- MustardA teaspoonful here is likely dry mustard powder, which is hotter by volume than prepared mustard, though the recipe does not specify. If substituting a jarred Dijon, use about a tablespoon and taste.
- ParmesanThree tablespoons of the real thing, grated fine, is enough to season three cups of meat without dominating it. Pre-grated shelf-stable cheese is drier and saltier, so hold back on the added salt until you have tasted the mix.
- "A little mayonnaise dressing"Add it a tablespoon at a time until the mixture just holds together when pressed, likely three to four tablespoons total. Too much and it slides out of the sandwich; the cheese and lamb fat already provide richness.
- The lettuce leafIt sits between the spread and the buttered bread; the buttered bread at least slows sogginess. Assemble shortly before eating, or the leaf wilts and the bread goes damp anyway.
- Lamb worth usingLeftover roast leg or shoulder, trimmed of the harder fat and any grey outer edge. Cold lamb sets its fat firm, so let the meat sit at room temperature for a few minutes before chopping.
Sandwich books proliferated in the United States between about 1900 and 1920, when afternoon teas, card parties and packed lunches all needed something small and portable, and publishers found a ready market in collections of a hundred or more fillings arranged by category. The logic of a recipe like this one is thrift as much as novelty: a joint of lamb was roasted whole, served hot, and then the remains were chopped, seasoned and stretched with dressing rather than reheated. Parmesan here is doing the job of an anchovy or a Worcestershire dash, adding salt and savour to meat that has lost its roasting juices. The lettuce leaf and the lightly buttered white bread are part of the standard grammar of the genre.