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Indian Sandwiches
To two parts of cooked veal or chicken, allow one part of cold boiled tongue, and to each cupful of the mixture (measured after putting through a chopper), add one tablespoonful of melted butter, one teaspoonful of essence of anchovy and one-half teaspoonful of lemon juice. Butter and cut the bread as directed, toast each slice golden brown, spread with the filling while hot and put together. Serve cold.
A proportional recipe rather than a fixed one: it scales to whatever cold roast you have. The one thing to get right is the order of operations at the end.
- Spread hot, serve coldThe recipe has the toast spread while hot and the finished sandwich served cold, so it is left to cool before serving; whether "while hot" refers to the toast or to the filling is not spelled out. Toasting after filling is not what is meant.
- Essence of anchovyA thin, salty Victorian bottled sauce of pounded anchovy, water and spice. Anchovy paste from a tube is the closest survivor, but it is more concentrated; start with half a teaspoon per cup of meat and taste. Colatura or a dash of Worcestershire will also carry the idea.
- ChopperA hand-cranked meat grinder. Pulse the meats in a food processor to a coarse mince rather than a paste, and measure the cupful after grinding, as the recipe specifies.
- Cold boiled tongueBeef tongue, simmered and peeled, still sold at butchers and in many delis; sliced pastrami or a good cooked ham is a reasonable stand-in, though both are saltier, so cut back on the anchovy.
- Proportions in practiceOne cup of ground meat works out at two-thirds cup veal or chicken to one-third tongue, plus 1 tablespoon melted butter, 1 teaspoon anchovy essence and half a teaspoon lemon juice. The weight of a cupful, and how many small sandwiches it fills, will vary with how coarsely the meat is ground.
- "Cut as directed"This points back to the book's general sandwich instructions, which are not given on this page; the wording "butter and cut the bread" does suggest buttering the loaf face before slicing.
- SeasoningNo salt or pepper is given, presumably because the anchovy and tongue supply the salt. A little cayenne is in keeping with the period if the mixture tastes flat.
The name has nothing to do with Native American cooking and no curry appears in it; in turn-of-the-century American and British cookery "Indian" is often said to have attached loosely to savory, highly seasoned potted-meat mixtures in the Anglo-Indian manner, the same family as devilled ham. What holds the recipe together is bottled essence of anchovy, a London grocery staple generally traced to the late eighteenth century onward and the standard shortcut for giving cold meat a savory depth before anyone spoke of umami. The sandwich chapter itself is a marker of its moment: pressed and potted leftovers, cut thin and crustless, were the backbone of the afternoon tea table and the picnic basket.