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Sweetbread Croquettes
591. Mince your sweetbreads very fine, add grated bread and a little salt, pepper, mace, and nutmeg, and grated lemon-peel. Moisten with cream, and make them up into small cones forming and smoothing them nicely; dip each into a mixture of egg and bread-crumbs, and fry them slowly in butter. Similar croquettes may be made of chicken, veal, or raw oysters.
A short Victorian entry that assumes knowledge the modern cook may not have: the sweetbreads must already be cooked and pressed before they are minced, or the croquettes will never firm up.
- Start with prepared sweetbreadsThe recipe takes for granted that the sweetbreads have been soaked in cold water until the water runs clear, blanched, skinned and pressed under a weight until cold. Mincing them raw gives a wet, greyish paste that will not hold a cone.
- What sweetbreads areIn this period the word means veal thymus (the "throat" bread) or pancreas (the "heart" bread); the pancreas is the plumper, better one. Order ahead from a butcher, and allow about 1 lb for four servings once trimmed.
- Grated breadTwo different things are meant in one paragraph. "Grated bread" for the mixture is dry stale crumb grated fine, used as a binder; the "bread-crumbs" for the coating are the same thing used outside. Panko is too coarse and open for this.
- Cream, by feelNo quantity is given because none can be. Add cream a spoonful at a time until the mince just coheres when squeezed — perhaps 2 to 3 tablespoons per pound. Too much and the cones slump in the pan.
- Mace and nutmegMace is the outer covering of the nutmeg seed, milder and more floral; both were standard with offal and white meats. A scant quarter teaspoon of each per pound is enough, along with the zest of half a lemon.
- Fry slowly, but not in plain butterFry slowly, but watch the butter -- Whole butter can brown and catch over the time needed. Clarified butter, or butter with a neutral oil, gives more leeway at a steady moderate heat, so the crust colours gradually as the centre heats through.
- Chill before coatingNot stated, but the shaped cones hold together far better after 30 minutes in the refrigerator. Egg-and-crumb them cold and fry them straight from the chill.
- The oyster variantThe recipe offers oysters as an alternative to the sweetbreads, not an addition. Minced raw oysters release liquid, so drain them well and use less cream. They need only the frying time to cook, so keep the cones small.
- Yield and servingAbout twelve small croquettes from a pound of sweetbreads, served hot as a first course or supper dish with lemon and a plain green salad.