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Sweetbreads, Minced, in Paper Cases
Take some cold dressed sweetbreads, and cut them into dice. Take an equal quantity of mushrooms and cut them up also. Stew the mushrooms in butter, and add a slice of fat bacon, the sweetbreads, and a little parsley, pepper, and salt. One or two shallots may be added if liked. Simmer over a gentle fire till the mushrooms are done enough. Drain off the fat, take out the parsley, and place the preparation in small paper cases which have been thoroughly oiled. Sprinkle a pinch of savoury herbs on the top, and cover each one with finely-grated bread-crumbs. Put the cases in the oven for a moment that they may be thoroughly heated, squeeze into each a few drops of lemon-juice, add a spoonful of rich gravy, and serve very hot. Dish the minced sweetbreads on a napkin. Time to simmer the mixture, about a quarter of an hour.
This is a re-heat dish built on sweetbreads already cooked the day before — a Victorian answer to leftovers from a larger dinner. Everything depends on the sweetbreads being properly prepared in the first instance.
- "Cold dressed sweetbreads"Sweetbreads (usually veal, sometimes lamb) that have already been soaked in several changes of cold water, blanched, trimmed of membrane and gristle, pressed under a weight, and then braised or poached. Raw sweetbreads diced straight into the pan will be spongy and bloody; if you are starting from scratch, cook and chill them first. The recipe gives no quantities — it works with whatever cold sweetbread you have, matched by an equal bulk of mushrooms.
- Paper casesCaisses — small rectangular or fluted cases folded from stiff paper, brushed inside with oil so they do not scorch or absorb the sauce. Parchment cases or paper soufflé cups do the same job. Foil or small ramekins work, though the point of the original is that the case goes to the table.
- "In the oven for a moment"The filling is already cooked; the oven is only setting the crumbs and heating the case through. No temperature is given in the book — a brief spell in a hot oven, a few minutes at most, is the intent. Longer and the sweetbreads tighten and the mushroom liquor dries out.
- The slice of fat baconA piece of fat bacon or salt pork, added for richness. The recipe says only to take out the parsley, so whether the bacon slice is lifted out or left in is not stated. Much modern streaky bacon is smoked and heavily cured; unsmoked bacon, pancetta or a piece of unsmoked belly is closer to what the book has in mind.
- Parsley in a sprig"Take out the parsley" tells you it goes in whole, as a sprig or small bunch, not chopped. Chopped parsley cannot be removed and will muddy the pale colour of the mince.
- Simmering timeA quarter of an hour suits large flat mushrooms, which shed a good deal of liquid. Cultivated cremini or button mushrooms release less and are done in eight to ten minutes; cook them until the pan is nearly dry, since the fat is drained off afterwards.
- "A spoonful of rich gravy"Not pan drippings but a strong, reduced meat stock or glaze of the kind a well-provisioned kitchen kept by. A tablespoon of well-reduced stock per case is enough; it should coat, not pool.
- Dishing on a napkinA folded linen napkin on the serving dish keeps the cases from sliding and absorbs any oil that seeps through the paper. No yield is given; a dish of this kind was served as a first course or a savoury, not a main dish.
Sweetbreads — the thymus and pancreas of a calf or lamb — were among the most prized offal in nineteenth-century English cooking, expensive enough that a household would not waste what came back from the table. This recipe belongs to a whole genre of Victorian re-heats designed to disguise their origins: mince the cold meat small, bind it with something savoury, hide it in a case, and crumb the top. The paper case itself is French, from the caisse of the professional kitchen, and its appearance in English domestic cookery writing of the later nineteenth century is often taken as a sign of how far restaurant technique had filtered into middle-class dining rooms. Serving such a dish on a folded napkin was standard practice of the period, part function and part display. Sweetbreads fell out of general English use in the twentieth century and are now largely a restaurant item, though they never left the French or Italian repertoire.