No. 974 — Pork Rib Chops with Seven Serving Variations
English historical translation of Molokhovets recipe No. 974 from the 1901 Russian cookbook, retaining original methods and measures.
Take a rack of pork, cut it into chops between the bones, trim each into an even cutlet, shorten the bones and beat the meat.
Salt, sprinkle with pepper and coat in breadcrumbs. Put on a hot buttered frying pan or tinned copper baking sheet over high heat to brown promptly.
Turn the chops, reduce the heat and finish frying; the source gives fifteen to twenty minutes in total. Its historical test for doneness is that pressing a chop no longer releases bloody juices.
Serve as soon as ready, so the chops remain juicy. Seven ways of serving are listed:
1) Fry a spoonful of flour in ½ spoonful of butter, thin with 1½ glasses of broth and bring to the boil with ½ glass of grated horseradish.
2) Alternatively substitute two spoonfuls of gherkins for the horseradish in the same sauce.
3) Pour over rich sauce with wine, No. 370.
4) Or serve with shallot sauce, No. 419.
5) Offer dried green peas, No. 511, and mashed potatoes, No. 627.
6) Pour cherry syrup over chops that have been coated only with egg, without onion, and then sprinkled with breadcrumbs.
7) Another method: fry a spoonful of finely chopped onion in ½ spoonful of butter, cool, beat in three eggs, brush this mixture over the chops and coat with crumbs from five or six rusks. Arrange on a baking sheet greased with 1½ spoonfuls of butter and brown in the oven, basting with butter.
To provide
4–5 Russian pounds of pork chops Salt, pepper and ½ glass of breadcrumbs | 2 spoonfuls of butter |