Braised Chops

A nineteenth-century braise dressed up as an entree: chops sealed in butter, jacketed in a liver-and-bacon farce, and cooked gently under paper. The recipe assumes a cook who already knows what a braise looks like, so most of the missing information is timing and temperature.

• The hinge: cool the chops firstThe instruction to let the fried chops cool is not incidental. A warm chop sheds its coating; a cold one lets the forcemeat set against the meat and stay put through the braise. Chill them properly, 20 minutes in the refrigerator, before coating.
• Which chopsAn unqualified "chop" in a book like this is most likely veal or mutton, though the recipe does not say. Veal loin or rib chops suit the delicate liver forcemeat best; lamb shoulder chops also work and are more forgiving. Seven is simply the number the recipe gives — scale freely.
• Oven temperatureNo heat is given. A braise of this kind wants 325-350F, low enough that the sauce barely trembles. Allow 45 minutes to an hour for veal chops, longer for mutton, until the meat gives easily.
• Buttered paperA paper lid laid on the chop, not a wrapper. Cut rounds of parchment, butter one side, and lay them buttered-side down directly on each chop to keep the forcemeat from drying and browning. Buttered parchment does the job; foil traps steam differently and will loosen the coating.
• The forcemeatTen minutes in the pan cooks the vegetables and firms the liver, but do not take it further — overcooked liver turns grainy and refuses to bind. The sieve was the standard way to get a smooth paste in a kitchen without machinery; a food processor does it in seconds, though a brief pass through a sieve afterwards still improves the texture.
• Brown sauceProbably a brown sauce of the espagnole type, though the recipe only says "brown sauce or stock." Half a cup is barely enough to baste seven chops, let alone strain around them — start with a cup and a half of good brown stock or demi-glace in the pan and reduce it after the chops come out. Modern beef stock will need reducing to get anywhere near the body the original assumes.
• Bread-crumbsLikely dry crumbs, working as a binder rather than a bulk ingredient. Around half a cup suits this quantity of liver and bacon; the recipe chops and cooks everything together, though adding them towards the end helps them absorb the fat and hold the paste.
• ServingSeven chops serve four to six. The "border of fried potatoes" is a ring of sautéed or straw potatoes laid round the edge of a hot platter with the chops inside and the strained sauce poured between — a presentation convention, not a garnish you can skip without changing the dish.