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Sweetbreads, Broiled or Grilled
Take moderate-sized sweetbreads and prepare them in the usual way. Stew them in good stock till they are done enough. Then drain them, and press them between two dishes till cold. Split them in halves and trim them neatly; brush them over with butter, and broil them over a clear but very gentle fire. Have a plate with clarified butter upon it near the gridiron, and keep dipping the sweetbreads in it, turning them frequently. When they are brightly browned all over they are done enough. Dish the slices in a circle, and send brown sauce flavoured with lemon-juice to table in a tureen. Time to stew the sweetbreads, about half an hour.
A two-stage method that still gives the best result with sweetbreads: poach, press, then finish over direct heat. The only real obstacle is that the book assumes you know what "prepared in the usual way" involves.
- Prepared in the usual waySoak the sweetbreads in several changes of cold water for two to three hours until the water runs clear, then blanch in simmering salted water for 3-4 minutes and refresh in cold water. Peel away the outer membrane and any fat or tubes while they are still cool and firm.
- What you are buyingVictorian sweetbreads are usually calf's — the thymus (throat) and pancreas (heart or belly). Lamb sweetbreads are smaller and cook faster. Both need ordering from a butcher; allow about 1 lb for four people.
- Stewing in good stockHalf an hour at a bare simmer suits a whole veal sweetbread of 6-8 oz; lamb sweetbreads want 10-15 minutes. Keep the liquid below a boil throughout, or the texture turns grainy. The stock is worth keeping — it makes the base of the brown sauce.
- The pressing is the hingePressing between two dishes until cold is not a tidiness measure. It compacts the sweetbread so it can be split and handled without collapsing, and gives flat faces that brown evenly. Put a weight of a pound or two on the upper dish and chill for at least two hours, ideally overnight.
- A clear but very gentle fireUnder a modern broiler, set the rack about 6 inches from the element on medium; on a ridged grill pan or grill, use moderate rather than fierce heat. High heat scorches the clarified butter before the surface has coloured. Figure 3-4 minutes a side.
- Clarified butterOrdinary melted butter will burn at broiling heat; clarified butter, with the milk solids removed, stands considerably more heat, which is why the plate sits beside the gridiron. Melt butter gently, skim the foam, and pour off the clear fat from the milky residue.
- Brown sauceA demi-glace or espagnole — a roux-based brown sauce built on veal stock, finished here with lemon juice. A reduction of the poaching stock thickened with a little beurre manié and sharpened with lemon does the same job.
- ServingTwo halves per person as a first course, arranged in a ring with the sauce passed separately rather than poured over, so the browned surface stays crisp.
Sweetbreads occupied a peculiar position in nineteenth-century British cookery: handled in kitchen books with the care reserved for delicate white meats, and often prescribed for invalids and children on the grounds of digestibility. The poach-press-grill sequence demonstrates a general lesson — that a soft, wet ingredient must be firmed and dried before it will take colour over direct heat. The name has nothing to do with bread or sweetness; it is generally traced to an older sense of "bread" meaning a piece of flesh, with "sweet" distinguishing the mild-tasting glands from stronger offal. Their disappearance from most home kitchens came later, with the mid-twentieth-century retreat from offal generally and, in Britain, the BSE-era restrictions on certain bovine tissues, which pushed veal sweetbreads to specialist butchers and restaurant menus.