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Sweetbread and Oyster Pie
1 pair sweetbreads 2 dozen oysters 1 tablespoon butter 1 tablespoon flour 1 cup cream or milk 2 egg-yolks, hard cooked Pepper and salt Puff or plain pie-paste Prepare sweetbreads. Make a white sauce with fat, flour, cream or milk, and add the egg-yolks, chopped very fine. Add sweetbreads and prepared oysters to the sauce. Season, put in a deep baking-dish, cover with a layer of paste, and bake.
A short entry that assumes you already know how to dress sweetbreads and shuck oysters, and gives neither an oven temperature nor a baking time. Both are supplied below.
- "Prepare sweetbreads"In books of this period this generally means soaking in several changes of cold water until no longer pink, parboiling in acidulated water, then plunging into cold water and peeling away the outer membrane and any tubes. Many books also press them between two plates under a weight until cold before slicing or breaking them into pieces.
- Buying sweetbreadsA "pair" is the two sweetbreads that come from one animal, sold together; weights vary considerably. They are a special order at most butchers now; ask for veal rather than beef, which are larger and coarser.
- Oysters"Prepared" means shucked and picked over for shell, and often drained or briefly heated until the edges just ruffle. Add them raw to the sauce and let the oven do the cooking; oysters held at a simmer turn rubbery in a few minutes.
- Oyster liquorReserve it. Oysters release liquid in the oven, so the sauce should go into the dish thick rather than pourable.
- Hard-cooked yolksThe chopped yolks act as a thickener and give the sauce body and colour. Push them through a sieve rather than chopping if you want them to disappear into the sauce entirely.
- Oven and timeBake in a hot oven, around 425F, for 20 to 25 minutes, until the crust is browned and the filling bubbles at the vents. Cut two or three steam vents in the top crust before it goes in.
- The dishA deep baking-dish means a straight-sided casserole of about 1 1/2 quarts, with a top crust only. Fill it nearly full so the pastry is supported.
- YieldServes four to six as a main course. Season carefully at the end: oysters and their liquor are salty, and the sauce may need little more than pepper.