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Fricandeau of Sweetbreads
Skin and wash some sweetbreads, and lard them with well-seasoned bacon. Line a braisingpan with slices of bacon and beef. Put in some slices of onion, carrots, thyme, bay leaves, and a seasoning of salt, pepper, grated nutmeg, and mixed spices; then put in the sweetbreads, cover them well with some of the same seasoning, and moisten with a little broth. Fix the lid on tightly; solder the edges with hot water paste, so that no air can be admitted, place some live embers on the lid, place the pan over a slow fire, and cook the contents for forty-five minutes. When cooked, pour the sauce through a fine hair sieve, add one pinch of sugar to it, and boil until reduced. Glaze the sweetbreads with the reduced sauce. Put the sweetbreads on a puree of chicory that has been placed on a hot dish, garnish with stewed cucumbers, and serve. Fried Sweetbreads with Perigueux Sauce Boil the sweetbreads, leave until cold, then cut them into slices. Melt a small quantity of butter in a flat stewpan, put in the slices of sweetbreads, sprinkle over a little pepper and salt, and fry them on both sides, add one-half pound of truffles cut in small pieces and a little white wine. Place the lid on the stewpan, cook the contents till the moisture has reduced to a glaze, then pour in a little brown sauce and put the mixture into a bain-marie. Butter a border mould, fill it with veal quenelle forcemeat, and poach it in a bain-marie. When firm turn the forcemeat out of the mould on to a hot dish, put a garnishing in the center, and serve.
Two sweetbread preparations from the Waldorf line kitchen, written for cooks who already knew how to handle the organ. The essential preliminary work is assumed rather than stated, and that is where most of the risk of failure lies.
- Prepare the sweetbreads first"Skin and wash" undersells it. Soak them in several changes of cold water for a few hours until the water runs clear, blanch them 3-5 minutes in salted water, cool in ice water, then peel away membrane and gristle and press between two plates under a weight until firm. Unpressed sweetbreads will not slice cleanly for the fried version.
- Which sweetbreadsAlmost certainly veal sweetbreads (ris de veau), though the recipe does not say so. Note that the thymus is the throat sweetbread and the pancreas the heart sweetbread; either may be meant. Lamb sweetbreads are much smaller and will overcook in a 45-minute braise.
- LardingThreading strips of seasoned fatback through the meat with a larding needle is optional insurance against dryness. Wrapping each sweetbread in a thin sheet of caul fat or a slice of bacon achieves the same thing with less equipment.
- The sealed pan"Solder the edges with hot water paste" means luting the lid on with a rope of flour-and-water dough so no steam escapes. A sheet of parchment pressed over the food and a heavy, well-fitting Dutch oven lid does the job; foil crimped over the rim is the direct equivalent.
- Embers on the lid means an ovenEmbers on the lid mean heat from above as well as below. The book gives no temperature; a low oven, somewhere around 300-325F, is the nearest modern equivalent to a luted, ember-topped pan on a slow fire. Bring the braise to a bare simmer on the stovetop first, then transfer it, covered, for the 45 minutes. The sweetbreads should be yielding but still hold their shape.
- Chicory puree'chicory' here most likely means Belgian endive (witloof) or a broad-leaved endive rather than the roasted root; curly frisee is less likely but the term was used loosely. Braise it in butter with a little stock until collapsed, then puree; the bitterness is the point against the sweet glaze.
- Half a pound of trufflesIn 1896 Perigord truffles were a costly luxury but not the extravagance they are now. For the fried sweetbreads, 1-2 oz of fresh truffle, or good truffle peelings with a spoonful of their juice, gives the same effect. Perigueux sauce is simply demi-glace with truffle and a little Madeira.
- Don't overcook the sliced versionThe slices are already cooked through from boiling. They want a brief browning in butter and then only long enough to reduce the wine to a glaze - a few minutes. Held too long they turn dense and grainy.
- The border mouldVeal quenelle forcemeat is pounded lean veal bound with egg and cream, or with a panada, poached gently in a water bath kept below the boil until set. It functions as an edible ring holding the garnish; a simpler alternative is to serve the slices on toast and skip the mould entirely.
Fricandeau properly names a larded, braised cushion of veal, and by the late nineteenth century the term is often said to have loosened to mean almost anything larded and braised in a sealed pot until glazed. Oscar Tschirky's 1896 book records the working repertoire of the Waldorf's kitchens, where sweetbreads were a fixture of the fashionable menu: delicate, expensive, perishable enough to signal a serious supply chain, and mild enough to carry truffle and Madeira. The luted lid and embers heaped on top belong to the older French practice of braising in a braisiere, a pan with a recessed lid designed to hold coals so the meat cooked from both directions at once.