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Creamed Sweetbreads
Lay sweetbreads in cold water with a little salt for 1 hour. Drain, put into saucepan, cover with boiling water and boil very slowly 25 minutes; drain and when cool separate and remove all membrane. Cut into small pieces and reheat in "Thick Cream Sauce".
A short recipe that assumes you already know two things it does not say: what "Thick Cream Sauce" is, and that sweetbreads must be firmed and peeled before they are worth eating. Both are covered below.
- The hinge: peel while barely warmThe membrane and any gristle generally come away most easily while the sweetbread is cool enough to handle but not chilled through. Work through it with your fingers and a paring knife rather than tearing at the meat.
- What sweetbreads are, and what to buyThymus and sometimes pancreas, from veal, lamb or beef. The recipe does not say which; veal is the likeliest intent. Today they are usually a special order at a butcher and are often sold frozen. Figure 1 to 1 1/2 lb for four people.
- Soak with purposeThe hour in cold salted water draws out blood and keeps the finished meat pale. Change the water once or twice if it colours heavily. Some cooks add a splash of lemon juice or vinegar to the blanching water for the same reason.
- 25 minutes is longModern practice poaches veal sweetbreads 15 to 20 minutes at a bare simmer, lamb's closer to 10; too long and the meat turns dense and grainy. "Boil very slowly" is the key phrase -- keep the water just trembling.
- Press themAn old step this recipe omits: after draining, lay the peeled sweetbreads between two plates with a weight on top and chill 30 minutes. They firm into a slab that cuts into neat pieces instead of crumbling.
- "Thick Cream Sauce"In books of this period that means a heavy white sauce -- roughly 3 tablespoons butter and 3 tablespoons flour to 1 cup milk or light cream, cooked out for a minute or two before the liquid goes in. Season with salt, white pepper and a scrape of nutmeg; a little of the poaching liquid loosens it if it stiffens.
- Reheat, do not simmerThe pieces are already cooked. Fold them into hot sauce and bring it just up to temperature, a minute or two, or the sweetbreads tighten.
- ServingThe period expected this on buttered toast points, in puff-pastry patty shells or over rice, often with peas or mushrooms folded in. It reheats poorly, so make it to order.
Sweetbreads were standard middle-class fare in American and British kitchens well into the 1930s, which is why many general cookbooks of the era carry a creamed version alongside creamed chicken and creamed oysters. The name has nothing to do with bread or sugar; it is generally traced to an older sense of "bread" meaning a piece or morsel of flesh, with "sweet" distinguishing the mild taste from stronger organ meats. Creaming was the standard treatment for any delicate cooked protein in this period, and cookbooks of the day leaned on white sauce constantly. Sweetbreads fell out of ordinary American cooking after mid-century, apparently through changing tastes in offal and shifts in how they reached retail butchers.