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Sweetbread Cromeskies
Boil an udder of veal in a stockpot, and when done leave it until cool, then trim and cut into thin slices the whole length of the piece. Blanch some throat sweetbreads, trim and cut them into small square pieces; cut an equal quantity of mushrooms in the same way and stir them together in some stiffly-reduced allemande sauce. When cold, place portions of the sweetbread mixture on slices of udder, wrap the udder round them and roll them into the shape of corks. Dip the crome-skies into frying-batter and fry them in a deep pan in plenty of fat until they are crisp and lightly browned. Drain the cromeskies, place them on a hot dish, garnish them nicely all round with fried parsley and serve.
A croquette in disguise: a creamed sweetbread salpicon rolled in a slice of cooked veal udder, battered and deep-fried. Two of its three main components have effectively left the market, so the substitutions matter more than the technique.
- Chill the filling hardThe hinge of the dish is a salpicon stiff enough to handle. The allemande must be reduced until it mounds on the spoon, and the mixture spread on a tray and refrigerated until firm — an hour at least. Warm filling bursts the batter in the fat.
- Veal udderNot readily available in the United States and hard to find elsewhere; it was valued for being bland, gelatinous and sliceable after long boiling. Caul fat, very thin blanched pancetta or bacon, or a thin sheet of blanched cabbage leaf all wrap and hold in the same way.
- Throat sweetbreadsThe thymus, from the neck, longer and less prized than the round "heart" sweetbread (the pancreas). Either works here since it is diced. Buy them fresh and pale, not grey.
- What blanching means hereSoak in several changes of cold water for two to three hours to draw the blood, then bring gently to a simmer in salted water for about 5 minutes, cool in ice water, and peel off the membrane. This is what makes them firm enough to dice.
- Allemande sauceA velouté — white stock thickened with a blond roux — finished with egg yolk, cream and lemon. Reduce it until it mounds on the spoon and add only enough to bind the diced sweetbreads and mushrooms; the recipe gives no quantities. Once the yolks are in, do not let it boil.
- Frying batter and fatA plain flour-and-beer or flour-and-water batter with beaten egg white folded in. Fry at 350-360F: hot enough to crisp quickly, low enough that the interior heats through without the coating darkening. Roughly three minutes, turning once.
- Fried parsleyDry the sprigs thoroughly and drop them into the fat for 10 to 15 seconds only. Wet parsley will spit violently in a deep pan of hot fat.
- YieldA pound of sweetbreads with an equal quantity of mushrooms gives roughly 16 to 20 cork-shaped cromeskies — six servings as a first course, four as a light main.
Cromeskies, more often written kromeskies or in French cromesquis, are generally traced to Poland and to a Polish word for a slice; nineteenth-century English cookery writers treat them simply as croquettes that have been wrapped before being battered and fried, the wrapper distinguishing them from an ordinary breadcrumbed croquette. They were standard hotel and club cookery on both sides of the Atlantic, and this version is a good example of the economy that hid inside grand-hotel menus: a boiled veal udder, a cheap organ nobody would order by name, becomes the elegant casing for a much dearer one. Sweetbreads themselves were a fixture of that era's fashionable table, appearing braised, larded, grilled and creamed, and a border of fried parsley was a common finish.