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Roast Beef Sandwich No. 2
Between thin slices of buttered bread place thin slices of cold roast beef; spread this thinly with horseradish.
A three-line sandwich that depends entirely on how the beef is cut and what the horseradish is. A few notes on translating it.
- The hinge: slice thin"Thin slices of cold roast beef" is the whole recipe. Chill the roast thoroughly, then slice across the grain as thin as the knife allows, or have it shaved at a deli counter. Thick slabs turn the sandwich into a chewing exercise.
- Horseradish, then and nowAt the time this was written this almost certainly meant grated horseradish root in vinegar, sharp and dry. Modern prepared horseradish is close; "horseradish sauce" is creamed and much milder, so use rather more of it if that is what you have.
- "Spread thinly"Taken seriously. Horseradish is meant to cut the fat of the beef, not to dominate it. A scant teaspoon for a whole sandwich is about right with the prepared root.
- Butter both slicesThe butter is not just flavour here. It seals the crumb against the moisture in the beef and the vinegar in the horseradish, which matters if the sandwich is being made ahead for a lunch box or a picnic basket.
- The breadSandwich books of this period generally seem to assume a close-grained white loaf sliced by hand, thin enough to be flexible. A firm white or light rye works; anything very open or crusty fights the thin filling.
- SeasoningNo salt or pepper is mentioned, presumably because the roast was seasoned when it was cooked. If your beef came from a package, a little salt on the meat improves it considerably.
- YieldAs written, one sandwich. Reckon on 2 to 3 oz of sliced beef per sandwich; for a tea plate, trim the crusts and cut into four fingers or triangles.
Sandwich books multiplied in the United States between about 1890 and 1920, when the packed lunch, the afternoon tea and the ladies' luncheon all needed filling. Recipes like this one are less inventions than instructions for using up Sunday's joint. Horseradish had long been the standard English accompaniment to beef -- served grated in vinegar at table well before it reached the sandwich -- so pairing the two would have read as obvious rather than clever. What the entry really records is a household in which a cold roast sat in the larder as a matter of course, and a cook who was expected to get several meals out of it.