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Sweetbreads En Casserole
1/2 cup celery, onion and carrot, chopped 2 pair sweetbreads 12 lardoons salt pork 4 tablespoons butter 1 cup veal broth 6 mushroom caps 1/2 cup thick cream Salt and paprika 1 pint cooked peas Let the sweetbreads stand an hour or longer in cold water, changing the water several times and removing unedible portions; drain, cover with boiling water, and let simmer ten minutes; let chill in cold water; then draw into the best side of each lardoons of fat salt pork. Melt the butter in a frying pan and in this brown the sweetbreads; set in the casserole; add veal broth (highly seasoned with half a cup of cut celery, onion and carrot, tied in a muslin for removal) to half cover the sweetbreads; cover with lid and let simmer in the oven nearly an hour. Sauté mushroom caps in butter and add these to the casserole; let cook fifteen minutes, when the broth should be well reduced; add cream, salt and paprika to season and hot cooked peas, letting the peas settle to the bottom of the dish and drawing the sweetbreads and mushrooms above them.
A veal-sweetbread braise from the chafing-dish chapter, though the long cooking here happens in the oven. Most of the work is in the preparation before any heat is applied.
- Buy veal, and order ahead"Two pair" means two pairs of veal sweetbreads (the thymus, in two lobes); the recipe gives no weight, but expect something on the order of two pounds. Few supermarkets carry them; a butcher will usually get them with a few days' notice. They are highly perishable and should be used within a day of purchase.
- The soaking and blanching is the hingeAn hour in several changes of cold water draws out blood so the finished sweetbreads stay pale; two to three hours is better. After the ten-minute simmer and the cold-water chill, peel away the outer membrane and any tubes while the sweetbreads are still cool and firm — this is the "unedible portions" the recipe glosses over, and it is far easier after blanching than before.
- Press themThe book omits a step many later cooks recommend: after chilling, lay the sweetbreads between two plates or trays with a light weight on top and refrigerate an hour. They firm into an even slab that browns and slices cleanly instead of collapsing.
- Lardoons and lardingTwelve lardoons are matchstick strips of fat salt pork, about 1/4 inch square and 2 inches long. "Draw into the best side" means threaded through the surface with a larding needle. Without one, cut narrow slits with a paring knife and push the strips in, or simply lay thin sheets of salt pork or blanched bacon over the top before braising.
- Casserole and ovenHere "casserole" is the lidded braising vessel, ideally one that goes from stovetop to oven. The recipe gives no oven heat, only "let simmer"; a moderate oven, in the region of 325F, will keep the liquid barely trembling, and a hard simmer toughens the meat and clouds the sauce.
- Broth and the bundle of vegetablesThe 1/2 cup of chopped celery, onion and carrot at the head of the list is the seasoning tied in muslin, not a separate garnish. Veal stock is worth seeking out or making from a few veal bones; a light unsalted chicken stock is the closest substitute, though it gives less body.
- Thick cream"Thick cream" here means the richest cream available, closest to modern heavy cream. Add it off the boil and let it warm through with the reduced broth; hard boiling after the cream goes in will break the sauce.
- YieldTwo pairs of sweetbreads with a pint (2 cups) of peas serves four generously as a main course, or six as a lunch dish. Salt only at the end — salt pork and reduced broth both concentrate.
Sweetbreads were standard genteel eating in American cookbooks of the early twentieth century, when offal carried no stigma and thymus from milk-fed veal was prized for its mild flavour and custardy texture. Larding with salt pork, threading strips of fat through lean meat with a needle, is straight out of the French repertoire that shaped American cooking-school teaching. The vegetables tied in muslin for easy removal are a bouquet garni by another name, and paprika was a fashionable finishing seasoning of the era, used where a later cook might reach for cayenne or white pepper.