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Sweetbread Salad
I pair sweetbreads ½ cupful cut celery Some crisp lettuce leaves 2 tablespoonfuls lemon juice 1 tablespoonful capers Mayonnaise dressing
An ingredient list for a cold composed salad of the sort that closed an Edwardian luncheon. The work is all in the sweetbreads, which have to be soaked, blanched, poached and pressed before they meet the celery.
- A pair of sweetbreadsA calf's sweetbreads comprise the elongated throat (thymus) and a rounder gland, variously called the heart, belly or stomach sweetbread; butchers' names for the two are inconsistent. A pair is on the order of a pound, losing a fair proportion in trimming. They are a special-order item from a butcher now, and often sold frozen.
- The step that mattersSoak the sweetbreads in several changes of cold water for 2-3 hours until they lose their pink tinge, then simmer 15-20 minutes in salted water with a squeeze of lemon, plunge into ice water, and peel away the membrane and any tubes. Press them between two plates under a weight in the refrigerator for an hour before dicing, or the salad will be spongy rather than firm.
- Cook them throughSweetbreads are glandular offal and should be poached to fully firm and opaque, not left rosy. Buy them very fresh or well frozen, keep them cold throughout, and use within a day of thawing.
- MeasuresA cupful is 8 fl oz; 1½ cupfuls of cut celery is about 5 oz, cut in short pieces to match the diced sweetbread. Two tablespoons of lemon juice is roughly one lemon.
- Dress in two stagesToss the diced sweetbread and celery with the lemon juice and a little salt and let it stand cold for 30 minutes, then fold in just enough mayonnaise to coat before serving. Dressing everything at once dilutes the mayonnaise as the celery weeps.
- CapersA tablespoonful of the small nonpareil capers, drained and rinsed if salt-packed. They stand in for the vinegar sharpness the period expected against rich organ meat.
- Assembly and yieldServe heaped on crisp lettuce leaves, chilled, with a little extra mayonnaise at the side. Enough for four as a first course or a light luncheon dish.
Sweetbreads, the thymus and pancreas of a calf or lamb, were a luxury of the late Victorian and Edwardian table: delicate, pale, expensive by weight, and endlessly recommended for invalids and for ladies' luncheons because they were considered light. Turning them cold into a mayonnaise salad with celery follows the same logic as the chicken and lobster salads common in cookbooks of the period, when "salad" more often meant a bound protein on lettuce than a bowl of leaves. Capers and lemon do the work that a modern cook might give to mustard or pickle, cutting the richness of a mayonnaise made with whole yolks and oil. The dish faded with the general retreat of offal from the English-speaking home kitchen after the Second World War, and sweetbreads are now largely a restaurant item.