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Lamb Sweetbreads, Larded
Soak three sweetbreads in water for two or three hours, and change the water frequently. Put them into a saucepan, and let them boil for five or six minutes, to make them firm. Take them out, put them into cold water, and lard them closely. Place them in a stewpan, with as much good veal stock as will reach up to the larding, and put with them a sliced carrot, an onion, a stick of celery, and a small piece of butter rolled in flour. Let them simmer gently for ten minutes, and baste liberally during the time. Beat an egg, mix it with half a pint of cream, add a dessert-spoonful of finely-minced parsley, and two or three grates of nutmeg. Take the carrot, onion, and celery out of the sauce, let it cool a minute, then add the egg and cream. If preferred, a quarter of a hundred asparagus-tops may be stewed in the sauce, instead of the carrot and celery. Stir constantly until quite hot; but it must not boil after the egg and cream are added. A teaspoonful of salt, and half a tea-spoonful of pepper, should be put in, if the stock is not already seasoned. Serve the sweetbreads on a hot dish, strain the sauce over them, and send sorrel or tomato sauce to table, in a tureen. Asparagus or green peas form an excellent accompaniment. Time, half an hour. Probable cost, uncertain. Sufficient for three or four persons.
A Victorian braise of lamb sweetbreads finished with an egg-and-cream liaison. Two things decide whether it works: the soaking and firming at the start, and keeping the finished sauce below a simmer at the end.
- The liaison must not boilOnce the beaten egg and cream go in, the sauce holds at around 175-180F and no higher. A boil scrambles the egg and the sauce breaks into curds that no amount of stirring will bring back.
- Soaking and blanching are not optionalThe long soak in frequently changed cold water draws out blood; the brief boil sets the flesh so it can be trimmed and larded without tearing. After the cold-water plunge, peel away the loose outer membrane and gristle, then press the sweetbreads flat between two plates with a weight for an hour if you have time.
- LardingLarding means threading strips of firm pork back fat through the surface with a larding needle, an operation few home kitchens are set up for. Wrapping each sweetbread in a thin sheet of caul fat or a rasher of unsmoked streaky bacon gives much the same basting effect.
- Which sweetbreadsLamb sweetbreads are the thymus (the elongated "throat bread") and the pancreas (the rounder "heart bread"), the latter usually reckoned the finer of the two. Lamb sweetbreads are small, so three is a modest amount. Order them from a butcher and use them within a day.
- Butter rolled in flourThis is beurre manie, equal parts soft butter and flour kneaded together. A piece the size of a walnut is enough to give the braising stock body before the cream goes in.
- Half a pint of creamAn imperial half-pint is 10 fl oz, about 1 1/4 US cups. Use single or light cream; heavy cream will make the sauce claggy against so small a quantity of meat.
- A quarter of a hundred asparagus-topsTwenty-five tips, counted rather than weighed, which was ordinary Victorian greengrocer's practice. Add them to the sauce for the last few minutes only.
- Timing and yieldThe stated half-hour covers the cooking, not the two or three hours of soaking. Ten minutes' gentle simmering suits small lamb sweetbreads; veal sweetbreads, being much larger, would need considerably longer. Sufficient for three or four persons.
- Seasoning the sauceA teaspoon of salt and half a teaspoon of pepper is generous for this volume of sauce. If the veal stock is already reduced or seasoned, taste before adding anything.
Sweetbreads occupied a peculiar rank in nineteenth-century English cooking: offal by butcher's logic, but treated in the kitchen as one of the most delicate things on the table, fit for invalids and for dinner-party entrees alike. Cassell's, generally dated to London in the 1870s and reissued for decades after, gives page after page of them - braised, fried in crumbs, in patties, with mushrooms. The larding needle and the egg liaison here both appear to come out of the French repertoire that is usually said to have dominated English professional cookery after Careme and Soyer, while the sorrel sauce sent separately in a tureen is an older English and French habit: a sharp, acidic foil to rich white meat, the same role tomato sauce plays as the alternative. The note "probable cost, uncertain" recurs in the book, and it is a reminder that these entries were written for a household managing a budget, not for a restaurant.