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Larding Bacon (Fried block of Bread)
Fried block of Bread.
Half a pint of Italienne Sauce.
Twelve small Quenelles.
One gill of Mushrooms.
Steep the sweetbread in water for an hour.
Then blanch it and press it slightly between two K dishes. When cold, cut away the sinewy fat and lard it. Place the sweetbread in a stewpan with the vegetables and stock, cover with buttered paper, and braise carefully for twenty or thirty minutes. Then take it out of the stewpan, place it on a baking sheet, baste it well with its own liquor, and put it in the oven to brown. Serve on the block of fried bread, sauce round, and garnish with the quenelles and mushrooms.
This is a page from the classic entrée repertoire: a larded veal sweetbread, braised, glazed, and set on a fried crouton with Italienne sauce. The printed ingredient list is a fragment — the sweetbread itself, the braising vegetables and the stock are assumed from the surrounding pages — so read it as a method rather than a shopping list.
- What is actually being madeThe title is misleading to a modern eye. "Larding bacon" is the material threaded through the meat, not the dish; the dish is a braised sweetbread served on a fried block of bread. Larding bacon means firm fat bacon (or pork back fat) cut into thin lardons and drawn through the surface with a larding needle, which bastes the lean sweetbread from within as it braises.
- The sweetbreadA veal sweetbread is meant, either the throat (thymus) or the heart sweetbread, the latter being the usual choice for larding whole. Order it from a butcher and use it the day it arrives. The hour's soak should be done in cold water in the refrigerator, with two or three changes, until the water runs clear rather than pink.
- Blanch and pressBlanching means bringing it slowly from cold water to a bare simmer for a few minutes, then refreshing in iced water — this firms the flesh so it can be peeled, trimmed and larded. "Press it slightly between two K dishes" is a misprint for two dishes; set a light weight of about a pound on top and chill for an hour or two. Do not crush it.
- MeasuresA gill is a quarter of a British pint, five fluid ounces, a little under two-thirds of a US cup (about 140 ml); the half pint of Italienne sauce is ten fluid ounces, about 285 ml. The mushrooms are a gill by volume — small button mushrooms, turned or left whole, cooked separately.
- The braiseVegetables here probably means the usual braising mirepoix of carrot, onion and celery; the stock should come no more than halfway up the sweetbread. The buttered paper (a cartouche) keeps the exposed top moist. Twenty to thirty minutes at a bare tremble suits a sweetbread of moderate size; it should feel resilient, not soft.
- BrowningThe glazing stage wants real heat — the top of a hot oven — and repeated basting with the reduced braising liquor every couple of minutes. The aim is a lacquered, gold surface on the lardons, which takes five to ten minutes, not a second cooking.
- Quenelles and sauceThe twelve small quenelles are veal or chicken forcemeat poached in stock, and can be made a day ahead and reheated in the sauce. Italienne sauce is a demi-glace with a duxelles of mushroom, shallot and herbs, finished with a little tomato; a good mushroom-fortified brown sauce stands in for it.
- YieldOne larded sweetbread with this garnish would serve about two as an entrée in the modern sense, or perhaps four in the period sense of one small course among many.
Larded and braised sweetbreads sat near the centre of the professional entrée repertoire in Britain and France from the mid-nineteenth century until the First World War. The dish depends on the kitchen brigade behind it: a sauce Italienne, a forcemeat for the quenelles and a brown braising stock are all separate preparations, each with its own page elsewhere in a book of this kind, which is why the printed recipe reads as a short assembly note rather than a full set of instructions. The fried block of bread — a croustade or croûte — is a plinth as much as a food, raising the meat above the sauce so that the glazed surface stays glossy on the way to the table. Sweetbreads were expensive and perishable, and their prominence in such books plausibly reflects a household that shopped daily and had someone on hand to soak, blanch and press them hours before dinner.