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Mutton Sandwich No. 2
Chop cold cooked mutton very fine; to each pint add one teaspoonful of salt, one tablespoonful of capers, on teaspoonful of chopped mint, a dash of pepper, and one tablespoonful of lemon juice. Spread this thickly over whole wheat bread. Cover with another slice and serve on lettuce leaves.
A straightforward chopped-meat filling that depends on leftover roast mutton and a sharp, herbal seasoning. The proportions are given by volume of chopped meat, which is easy enough to work with once you know what a pint of it weighs.
- A pint of chopped meatFinely chopped cooked mutton packs to roughly 12-14 oz per pint, or about 2 cups. Spread as thickly as the recipe asks, that should make something in the region of six to eight sandwiches, depending on the slice.
- Mutton, and what to use insteadMutton is meat from a mature sheep, generally over a year old (some sources set the line higher), stronger and fattier than lamb, and rarely sold in American markets now. Leftover roast leg or shoulder of lamb works, though it is milder; the capers, mint and lemon are there to cut richness, so taste before adding the full teaspoon of salt if your meat was already seasoned.
- "On teaspoonful" is a typoThe original reads "on teaspoonful of chopped mint" — read it as one teaspoonful. Fresh mint, chopped fine, not dried.
- CapersDrain and chop them roughly before measuring; whole capers in a chopped-meat spread burst unevenly and make the seasoning patchy. Salt-packed capers are much saltier than brined ones and should be rinsed or soaked before use.
- Binding the fillingLemon juice alone will not hold finely chopped lean meat together, and the sandwich tends to crumble. A spoonful of the pan juices, softened butter, or mayonnaise spread on the bread solves it without changing the flavour.
- Bread and assemblyWhole wheat is what the recipe specifies; no reason is given for it. Butter the bread to the edges to keep the lemon juice from soaking through if the sandwiches are to stand.
- KeepingCooked meat chopped fine has a great deal of surface area. Mix and use the filling the same day, keeping it refrigerated until the sandwiches are made.
Mint with sheep is one of the oldest fixed pairings in English cookery, and capers with mutton is nearly as old: eighteenth- and nineteenth-century English cookbooks routinely serve boiled mutton with a caper sauce, and this sandwich simply folds that sauce's flavours straight into the meat. The recipe belongs to a period when the sandwich was shifting from a tavern snack to a respectable dish for luncheons, teas and picnics. Recipes like this one may also have solved a practical problem in a household that roasted a large joint on Sunday: cold mutton was plentiful, unglamorous, and needed disguising by midweek.