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Lamb Sweetbreads, Fried
Soak three sweetbreads in water for two or three hours, to draw out the blood, then boil them for ten minutes, to set them firm, and throw them into cold water for ten minutes more. Dry them in a soft cloth, and press them between two dishes. Dredge a little flour over them, brush them over with beaten egg, and sprinkle finely-grated bread-crumbs upon them, and fry them in bacon-fat or butter. Baste them constantly until brightly browned. A tea-spoonful of bread-raspings, such as are used for hams, may be strewn over the bread-crumbs, to ensure the colour being good. Have ready half a pint of good brown gravy. Stir a glass of sherry into it, to flavour it, and pour this round, not upon, the sweetbreads. Garnish with water-cress. Time, altogether, about half an hour, exclusive of the soaking. Sufficient for three or four persons. Probable cost, uncertain.
A straightforward crumb-and-fry treatment of lamb sweetbreads, written when butchers sold them as a matter of course. Most of the work is the preparation before the pan.
- The hinge: soak, blanch, pressThe soaking, ten-minute boil, cold plunge and pressing are not optional fuss. They draw the blood, firm a soft gland so it can be sliced and handled, and flatten it so it cooks evenly. Skipping any step gives a floppy, greyish sweetbread that sheds its crumbs in the pan.
- Which glandLamb sweetbreads may be the thymus (the elongated "throat bread" and the rounder "heart bread" nearer the heart) or the pancreas, sometimes sold as the stomach or belly sweetbread. The thymus heart bread is usually reckoned the choicest. Either works here; buy them very fresh or frozen, and cook within a day of thawing.
- Peel the membraneAfter the cold water and before pressing, pull away the outer membrane and any tubes or fat. The book assumes you know this. Warm from blanching, it strips off easily; cold, it tears.
- Half a pint of gravyAn imperial half pint is 10 fl oz, about 1¼ US cups. A "glass" of sherry in Victorian cookery is loose, roughly 2 to 3 fl oz, which is a generous amount in that quantity of gravy. Add it to taste and let it cook a minute so the alcohol edge goes.
- Bread-raspingsRaspings are the dry, browned crumbs made by grating a hard-baked crust, used in the period to colour boiled hams. Dried breadcrumbs toasted to a deep tan do the same job: they darken the coating faster than fresh crumbs, which brown slowly and can go pale and greasy.
- Basting versus deep frying"Fry" here means shallow frying in a pan with enough fat to spoon over the top, not immersion. Keep the fat at a steady medium heat, around 350F if you measure it; too hot and the crumbs colour before the inside is hot through, too cool and they soak.
- Gravy round, not uponStated plainly in the original and worth repeating. Sauce poured over a crumbed sweetbread turns the coating to paste within a minute.
- Timing and yieldHalf an hour covers the blanching, pressing, crumbing and frying together; the frying itself is only a few minutes a side for pressed sweetbreads. The book gives three sweetbreads as sufficient for three or four persons.
Sweetbreads were common restaurant and household fare in Britain when Cassell's was compiled, valued for their mildness and delicacy rather than treated as an oddity, and lamb's were the cheaper, smaller alternative to calf's. The name has nothing to do with bread or sugar; it is generally traced to an older sense of "bread" meaning a piece of flesh, with "sweet" marking its bland richness against strong-tasting offal like kidney or liver. The method here, egg-and-crumb then fry with a separate brown gravy, is a standard treatment of the period, and the little note about raspings suggests the value placed on colour on the plate. The entry's "probable cost, uncertain" is notable: unlike the joints and puddings elsewhere in the book, no price is ventured.