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Braised Sweetbreads
Arrange in the bottom of a buttered baking dish one fourth cup each of chopped carrot, celery, onions and salt pork. Place parboiled sweetbreads on top of vegetables; cover with stock in tightly covered dish and bake slowly three quarters of an hour. Remove vegetables to serving dish and serve sweetbreads on top of them.
A plain mirepoix braise that assumes you already know how to prepare sweetbreads, which is the part most modern cooks need spelled out.
- Parboiled, in fullThe recipe's whole preparation stage hides in one word. Soak the sweetbreads in several changes of cold water for two to three hours until they lose their pink tinge, simmer 15-20 minutes in acidulated water, then plunge into ice water, peel away the outer membrane and any fat or tubes, and press between two plates under a weight until cold and firm.
- Which sweetbreadsThe book presumably means veal sweetbreads — the thymus and pancreas of a calf. The rounder, meatier "heart" (pancreas) and the throat (thymus) are both sold, and which one a butcher has varies, so order ahead; they are rarely on display. Around 1 to 1 1/2 lb suits this quantity of vegetables.
- "Bake slowly"The book gives no temperature; a slow oven of this period is usually reckoned at somewhere around 300F. At that heat, 45 minutes in a tightly covered dish should suit pressed, parboiled sweetbreads — heated through and tender, not falling apart.
- How much stockNo quantity is given, and "cover with stock" may mean literally to cover. If you want something left to reduce, add veal or chicken stock only partway up the sweetbreads — roughly 3/4 to 1 cup for a small dish — rather than submerging them.
- The salt porkA quarter cup of diced salt pork is doing the seasoning as well as adding fat, so hold back any added salt until you taste the finished liquid. Blanch the pork a minute if it seems very salty; unsmoked bacon or pancetta will substitute.
- Seal the dish"Tightly covered" matters more than the timing. If steam escapes, the exposed surfaces dry and toughen. A lid plus a sheet of foil or a round of buttered parchment pressed onto the surface keeps them succulent.
- Finish the liquidThe recipe discards nothing but says nothing about the braising liquid either. Strain it off, reduce hard to a few spoonfuls of glaze, and pour over the sweetbreads before serving — otherwise the plate reads bland.
- YieldNo yield is given; the quantities suggest about four servings as an entrée in the period sense — a small course between fish and roast, not a main plate. Allow one whole sweetbread per person if serving it as a main.
Sweetbreads were standard middle-class entrée material in American cookbooks of the 1900s, when offal of all kinds was widely butchered and not yet exotic, though the sweetbread itself was a prized and comparatively costly cut. The name is often said to have nothing to do with bread or sugar; the word is of uncertain origin, but the explanation generally traced is an Old English usage in which "bread" carried a broader sense of a morsel or piece of flesh, with "sweet" distinguishing the mild-tasting gland from stronger organ meats. The cooking method here is a straightforward braise over a mirepoix — the diced carrot, celery and onion that French kitchens had standardised long before, given an American accent by the salt pork. Lowney's Cook Book (1907) was compiled by Maria Willett Howard for the Walter M. Lowney Company, a Boston chocolate manufacturer, which explains the book's heavy chocolate chapters; the savory sections like this one are conventional general-purpose cookery of the period.