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Plain Broiled Sweetbreads
After parboiling and blanching, boil gently for five minutes; split the sweetbreads lengthwise, dust with salt and pepper, rub over with a little butter, and broil over clear coals, turning often until both sides are a delicate brown. Lay them on a hot platter, cover with butter, squeeze a little lemon juice over them, and more salt and pepper if needed. Or serve with parsley butter poured over them.
A short recipe that assumes you already know the standard preparation of sweetbreads, which is where nearly all the work lies. The broiling itself takes under ten minutes.
- What sweetbreads areThe thymus (throat sweetbread) and pancreas (heart or stomach sweetbread) of a calf or lamb. Veal heart sweetbreads are the plump, rounded ones and the best for broiling; order them ahead from a butcher, as few supermarkets stock them.
- The assumed first steps"Parboiling and blanching" means: soak in several changes of cold water for an hour or two until they lose their pink colour, then simmer in salted, acidulated water. The gentle five-minute boil here reads as the tail end of that same process rather than a separate cooking, though the recipe does not spell that out.
- Peel and pressThis is the hinge. As soon as they come out of the simmering water, drop them into ice water, then strip off the outer membrane and any tubes or fat with your fingers. Press the trimmed sweetbreads between two plates with a weight for 30 minutes; pressing firms them and helps them hold their shape on the grill.
- Never let them boil hard"Boil gently" is meant literally. A rolling boil makes sweetbreads tough and grainy, and the delicate texture is the whole point of the dish.
- "Clear coals"Coals burned down to grey ash with no flame or smoke, roughly medium-high direct heat. A ridged grill pan or a gas broiler set high works, but keep the sweetbreads 4 to 5 inches from the element so they colour before drying out.
- TimingSplit halves need about 3 to 4 minutes a side. They are already cooked through; you are only browning them.
- Parsley butterSoftened butter worked with chopped parsley, lemon juice, salt and pepper, then melted or laid on in coins so it melts over the hot meat. Anchovy butter was used in much the same way in this period.
- YieldOne pair of veal sweetbreads serves two as a main course, or four as a first course. Serve immediately; they go flat and rubbery as they cool.
Sweetbreads were a staple of respectable American and British cookery from the mid-nineteenth century into the 1940s, treated as a delicacy on the same footing as brains and calf's liver, and they turn up in hotel menus of the era beside terrapin and canvasback duck. The name has nothing to do with bread or sugar; "sweet" is generally taken to distinguish the mild flavour from strong-tasting organ meats, and "bread" is often traced to an Old English word for a piece of roast flesh. Compendium volumes like this one commonly printed a run of sweetbread recipes -- creamed, larded, in patty shells, broiled -- often grouped so that an earlier entry carries the soaking, parboiling and pressing instructions that the later ones abbreviate to a phrase. Domestic demand fell away after mid-century as offal went out of household favour, and the long preparation described here is one reason sweetbreads are now found chiefly on restaurant menus.