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Lamb Sweetbreads, Scalloped
Soak three lamb's sweetbreads, and boil them for ten minutes. Throw them into cold water, drain and dry them, and cut them in thin slices. Season and flavour them with a tea-spoonful of salt, half a tea-spoonful of pepper, the eighth of a nutmeg, grated, and the juice of half a lemon, and fry them with an ounce of butter till they are brightly browned. Dredge a table-spoonful of flour on them, pour over them half a pint of boiling cream, and add a dozen sliced mushrooms. Shake the pan over the fire for a few minutes, then draw it aside, and let it cool a little. Mix a tea-spoonful or two of the sauce with two well-beaten yolks of eggs, and add them gradually to the rest. Stir over the fire again until quite hot, and serve in the middle of a rice border. Time, half an hour. Probable cost, uncertain. Sufficient for four or five persons.
A late-Victorian fricassee of sweetbreads finished with an egg-and-cream liaison. The whole thing hangs on the last step: once the yolks go in, the sauce must never reach a simmer.
- The liaison is the hingeAfter the yolks are stirred in, keep the pan below about 180F/82C — hot enough to thicken, not enough to scramble. Draw the pan off the heat as soon as the sauce coats the back of a spoon; if it looks grainy it has gone too far and will not come back.
- Soaking and blanching"Soak" means two to three hours in several changes of cold water, or overnight in the refrigerator, to draw out blood. The ten-minute boil followed by cold water firms the flesh so it slices cleanly; after draining, peel away the outer membrane and any gristle before slicing.
- Which sweetbreadsLamb sweetbreads are the thymus and pancreas of a young animal, smaller and milder than veal. They can be hard to find; order ahead, or substitute veal sweetbreads, which will need longer soaking and a slightly longer blanch.
- Half a pint of creamAn imperial half-pint is 10 fl oz, so a scant 1 1/4 US cups. Use heavy or double cream — single cream or half-and-half is much more likely to curdle when the egg goes in.
- SeasoningA full teaspoon of salt for three small sweetbreads is heavy by modern taste; start with half and correct at the end, since the cream flattens salt and you will want to adjust after the liaison.
- MushroomsA dozen small button mushrooms, sliced, is roughly 4 oz. Add them raw as directed and they will release water into the sauce; sautéing them separately first gives a tighter, better-flavoured result.
- The rice borderPlain boiled long-grain rice, well drained and pressed into a buttered ring mould, then turned out onto a hot dish with the sweetbreads spooned into the centre. About 1 1/2 cups raw rice serves four to five.
- Yield and timingFour or five as a first course, three as a main. The half hour counts only the cooking; allow the soaking time on top.
Sweetbreads occupied an odd place in the Victorian kitchen — offal by origin, but treated with the same cream, lemon and nutmeg lavished on chicken and veal, and often priced accordingly; that may be why the book gives up on the cost and writes "uncertain." The finish here is a classic liaison, egg yolks tempered with hot sauce and stirred back in, a French technique that ran through nineteenth-century English cookery books and survives in blanquettes today. The rice border belongs to the same era's fondness for shaping food: a ring or wall of rice, mashed potato or forcemeat that gave a soft ragoût an architectural edge on the dish.