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Calf's Sweetbreads, Baked
Prepare the sweetbreads as above. Dry them, dip them in egg and bread-crumbs, place two or three lumps of butter or nice beef dripping on and around them, and bake them in a moderate oven for three-quarters of an hour, basting them frequently during the process. Serve them on a slice of toast, and pour a good brown gravy round them. Sufficient, two sweetbreads for three persons.
A straightforward crumbed roast that assumes you have already read the preceding entry in the book. Everything depends on what "prepare the sweetbreads as above" stands in for.
- The missing first stepVictorian sweetbread recipes generally begin with several hours' soaking in cold water changed repeatedly to draw out blood, a brief blanch (brought to the boil from cold, then refreshed), peeling away the membrane and gristle, and pressing between two plates under a weight until cold and firm. Something along those lines is most likely what "prepare the sweetbreads as above" stands in for.
- Which glandButchers distinguish the plump heart sweetbread (part of the thymus), the lobe suited to this kind of roasting, from the longer throat sweetbread, which is stringier. Veal sweetbreads often have to be ordered ahead, and may be sold frozen rather than fresh.
- A moderate ovenUsually reckoned at somewhere around 350F/175C, though the term was loose. The book's ovens were coal-fired and uneven.
- Three-quarters of an hour is too longThree-quarters of an hour is long -- a blanched and pressed sweetbread is largely cooked already, and the bake is mainly to set the crust and heat it through. Twenty to twenty-five minutes at 350F will brown the crumbs; the full forty-five risks drying them out.
- Beef drippingStill sold, and worth using here for flavour and for its tolerance of heat. Clarified butter behaves much the same way; whole butter over forty-five minutes is more likely to brown and catch, though the recipe offers it as an equal option.
- BastingThe lumps of fat are set on and around the sweetbreads so that they melt down over the crumbs. Basting at intervals keeps the coating from drying in patches rather than crisping evenly.
- Good brown gravyA gravy built on brown stock rather than simply thickened pan drippings. The recipe has it poured round the sweetbreads rather than over them, which keeps the crumb crust from softening.
- YieldTwo sweetbreads for three people reflects Victorian portioning within a multi-course meal. As a modern main course, allow roughly one lobe per person.
Sweetbreads were a standard entree in the nineteenth-century English kitchen, delicate enough to appear at a dinner party, which is why Cassell's carries a run of them prepared several ways. The origin of the word is uncertain: it is often traced to an older sense of "bread" meaning a piece or morsel of flesh, with "sweet" taken to distinguish the mild-tasting glands from stronger offal like kidney or liver, but the etymology is not settled. The soak-blanch-press routine assumed here is broadly the one professional kitchens still follow, and the finish on a slice of toast with gravy poured round rather than over is a very Victorian piece of plating logic: the bread catches the sauce so the crust stays crisp. That such an entry needed no explanation of the preparation suggests how routinely these were handled in a household that could afford a cook.