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Sweetbreads, Stewed
Soak two sweetbreads for an hour. Boil them quickly for ten minutes, and put them into cold water for twenty minutes. Lay them in a saucepan, pour over them three-quarters of a pint of white stock, and add a little pepper and salt and a small pinch of powdered mace. Let them simmer gently for half an hour. Take them up, and put them in the oven to keep hot. Thicken the gravy with a little flour and butter, let it boil, and when it is smooth stir in four table-spoonfuls of cream. Put the sweetbreads on a dish. Add a dessert-spoonful of lemon-juice to the sauce, and pour it over. Time to stew the sweetbreads, half to three-quarters of an hour, according to size. Probable cost, 1s. 6d. to 5s. each.
A straightforward Victorian braise that depends almost entirely on the preparation stage rather than the cooking. Everything after the blanch is gentle poaching and a quick cream sauce.
- The hinge: peel while warmThe soak, quick boil and cold plunge exist to firm the gland so the outer membrane and any fat and ducts can be stripped away. Do that peeling while the sweetbreads are still just warm from the cold water; once fully chilled the membrane clings and tears.
- What to buyVeal sweetbreads are the thymus of a young calf, sold as the round, plump "heart" lobe and the longer, looser "throat" lobe. Order from a butcher and allow a day or two. Sizes vary a good deal, so weigh what you are given rather than working to a fixed figure. Lamb sweetbreads are smaller and cook faster.
- Freshness matters more than usualOffal spoils quickly. Use within a day of purchase, keep the soaking water cold and change it once or twice until it runs pale rather than pink.
- Three-quarters of a pintAn imperial pint is 20 fl oz, so this is 15 fl oz, near enough 1 3/4 US cups. White stock means an unsalted, uncoloured veal or chicken stock made from unroasted bones; a good low-sodium chicken stock stands in.
- Simmer means barely tremblingHalf an hour at a bare simmer is right for veal; a proper boil turns the texture spongy. Small lamb sweetbreads will be done in 15-20 minutes.
- Keeping hot in the ovenVictorian ranges often had a plate-warming compartment. A very low oven, around 200F, covered, will do, and only for the few minutes it takes to finish the sauce, or they dry.
- The sauce"A little flour and butter" is beurre manie: work 1 tbsp each to a paste and whisk it into the boiling stock in pieces. Add the cream, then take the pan off the heat before the lemon juice goes in, so it does not split. A dessertspoon is about 2 teaspoons.
- MacePowdered mace is the ground aril of nutmeg, warmer and less sweet than the nut itself. It is worth buying rather than substituting nutmeg, which will dominate the cream.
- YieldTwo sweetbreads with sauce serve two as a main course or four as a first course, traditionally with toast, rice or plain boiled vegetables.
Sweetbreads were a standard of the nineteenth-century English table, prized as a delicate, easily digested meat and prescribed constantly in invalid cookery alongside beef tea and calf's-foot jelly. The origin of the name is uncertain: it has often been linked to an older sense of "bread" meaning flesh or morsel, though the "sweet" element remains conjecture. Cassell's habit of printing a probable cost is telling here, and the range given, 1s. 6d. to 5s. each, is wide, reflecting size and quality; sweetbreads were a mark of a good butcher and a comfortable household. The white stock, cream and mace suggest the blanquette tradition English cooks inherited from French practice, where the point is a sauce that stays pale.