Home › Meat › Creamed Sweetbreads (Pairs sweetbreads tablespoons)
Creamed Sweetbreads (Pairs sweetbreads tablespoons)
2 pairs sweetbreads 4 tablespoons butter or other fat 4 tablespoons flour 1 teaspoon minced parsley 2 cups milk or cream Salt and pepper Prepare as directed and cut into dice. Make a white sauce with the fat, flour and milk or cream, add the sweetbreads, and stir steadily until very hot. Season with salt and pepper and minced parsley.
A plain white-sauce dish that assumes you already know how to bring sweetbreads to the point where they can be diced. That preliminary work is the whole job; the sauce takes ten minutes.
- "Prepare as directed"The reference is to the book's own basic sweetbread instructions, which are not reproduced here. The standard drill of the period: soak in several changes of cold water until the water runs clear, simmer 15-20 minutes in salted acidulated water, plunge into ice water, then peel away the outer membrane and any gristle. Pressing between two plates under a weight while cooling helps them dice cleanly instead of crumbling.
- What a "pair" isVeal sweetbreads come as the heart (round) and throat (elongated) glands; a pair commonly runs somewhere around 3/4 to 1 lb, so two pairs is roughly 1 1/2 to 2 lb, which after trimming should give four to six servings over toast, rice or in pastry shells.
- Buying them nowSweetbreads are a special order at most counters. Ask for veal, not beef, and use them within a day of purchase, or two if frozen and thawed in the refrigerator: they are highly perishable.
- Sauce ratioFour tablespoons each of fat and flour to two cups liquid is a medium-thick sauce. Cook the roux two or three minutes before the milk goes in so it does not taste of raw flour, and add the milk warm to avoid lumps.
- "Stir steadily until very hot"This means heating through only. The sweetbreads are already cooked, and prolonged simmering in the sauce turns their texture from creamy to grainy. Five minutes at a bare simmer is enough.
- SeasoningSweetbreads are mild and the sauce will taste flat without generous salt. Nutmeg, a spoonful of sherry, or lemon juice added off the heat are all common additions to creamed sweetbreads, though this recipe calls for none of them; the parsley should go in at the very end so it stays green.