Sweat
TO, is not a pretty phrase; but it expresses clearly enough the act of making meat yield its juices by being heated in a pan with little or 'no water. Necessarily the heat applied must be low and slow.
SWEETBREADS have to go through a certain dressing before being cooked. They are to be soaked for an hour or more in lukewarm water, then blanched in cold water, then passed into boiling water-where they are to simmer until they become firm and fit for the larding needle, then cooled and dried, then pressed between baking-sheets into the proper rounded shape, then larded with strips of bacon about one-eighth of an inch thick. Put them next in a stewpan, with a pint of broth and a pinch of salt. Thicken the broth by reduction, then add another half-pint to it, and cover it up with live coals on the lid. From time to time baste the sweetbreads with the gravy, to glaze them. When they have taken a dark-brown tint, serve them on the dish, with the sauce poured over them, For garnish, choose between endive, sorrel, peas, and a Macedon.
Roasted Sweetbreads. This is what the French set down as the Ris de veau à l'Anglaise. The sweetbreads being prepared as before, but not necessarily larded, are egged, then breadcrumbed, then sprinkled with oiled butter, then breadcrumbed again, then put into a flat tossing-pan, with two ounces of oiled butter, then baked in a quick oven for half an hour, with frequent basting from the butter in the pan. When of a golden-brown, dish them with a plain gravy or a tomato sauce, and garnish of vegetables as before.
Two entries run together here: a definition of the verb "to sweat", and a full method for veal sweetbreads, braised and then roasted. The braise is the harder of the two, and most of what needs translating belongs to it.
- The hinge: don't let the water boil hardSweetbreads set firm at a bare simmer; a rolling boil makes them tough and swells them so they will not press into shape. Ten to twenty minutes of poaching, depending on size, is enough to firm them for handling.
- What sweetbreads areIn the veal trade the word covers the thymus (the throat bread) and the pancreas (the heart or belly bread). They are a special order from a butcher rather than a supermarket item, and being highly perishable they should be used the day they are bought.
- "Blanched in cold water"Here the cold-water stage comes before the boiling water, so it appears to mean a cold-water soak to whiten the sweetbreads and draw out remaining blood rather than blanching in the modern sense. The initial soak in lukewarm water is to draw out blood; change the water a few times.
- Pressing between baking-sheetsAfter refreshing, peel away the membrane and outer sinew, then lay the sweetbreads between two flat trays with a weight on top for an hour in the refrigerator. This is what gives the neat rounded shape the recipe assumes.
- LardingA larding needle threads strips of fat through the meat. Sweetbreads are lean and this keeps them moist; if you have no needle, simply wrap or bard them in thin bacon or pork fat and tie.
- "Live coals on the lid"This is braising in the old sense, with heat above as well as below to reduce and glaze the liquid. A heavy lidded pan in a 325F oven does the same work; check every fifteen minutes and baste.
- "A quick oven" for the roasted versionRead that as roughly 400-425F. Half an hour at that heat suits already-poached sweetbreads, which need only to colour the crumb crust through.
- "Oiled butter"Melted butter, ideally clarified so the milk solids do not burn at roasting heat.
- "A Macedon"A macédoine: mixed vegetables cut in small even dice, usually carrot, turnip, green beans and peas, dressed in butter.
- Quantities and yieldThe recipe does not say how many sweetbreads the pint of broth is meant to cover; use only enough liquid to sit snugly around them. The second half-pint goes in only after the first has reduced to a glaze. Allow one sweetbread per person as a first course, two as a main.
Kettner's Book of the Table (1877), written anonymously by the journalist E. S. Dallas around the name of the Soho restaurateur Auguste Kettner, is arranged as an alphabetical dictionary, which is why a note on the verb "to sweat" sits directly above a recipe for sweetbreads. Veal sweetbreads were among the most prized items on a nineteenth-century menu \— delicate, expensive, and requiring the long sequence of soaking, poaching, pressing and larding set out here. The label ris de veau à l'Anglaise for the egged and crumbed version is often said to reflect a French kitchen habit of tagging breadcrumbed, plainly served preparations as English, a convention Dallas seems content to follow while making his own case that French cooking and English produce belonged together.