No. 1511

Paupiettes of Fillet of Veal a la Whittier

Paupiettes de Filet de Veau a la Whittier.

Blanch some small heart sweetbreads; cut them up into inch squares. Pare three fillets of veal, cut them into eighth of an inch lengthwise slices, flatten them slightly and pare into oblongs, four by two and a quarter; lay them on the table, season and spread over with a forcemeat prepared as follows; Chop up the parings of the meat with the same weight of fat pork; mix in cooked fine herbs (No. 385), bread-crumbs, egg-yolks and chopped up ham, season, roll up each paupiette, wrap them in sheets of buttered paper and tie them at both ends the same as a boned turkey, braise these for one hour and a half, unwrap, glaze and dress on a well-buttered bechamel sauce (No. 409). Fry the sweetbreads on a brisk fire, add to them some raw fine herbs, meat glaze (No. 402) and the juice of a lemon, dress them in the middle of the paupiettes.

← No. 1510 Minions of Fillet of Veal with Mushrooms Veal No. 1512 Schnitzel, German Style →

For the Modern Kitchen

Ranhofer assumes a brigade and a cross-referenced sauce library; the dish itself is straightforward once you accept that the paupiettes are essentially stuffed veal rolls braised in paper. A few points to translate.

The hinge: slice thicknessThe veal must be cut lengthwise at 1/8 inch and gently flattened to oblongs of roughly 4 by 2 1/4 inches. Thicker slices will not roll tightly and will squeeze the forcemeat out during braising; if your slices tear, overlap two pieces and pound the seam.
"Three fillets of veal"Here "fillet" is likely Ranhofer's usual sense of a large trimmed cut from the leg or loin rather than three whole tenderloins in the modern butcher's sense. The recipe gives no weights and no yield, so scale to the number of paupiettes you want.
Forcemeat proportionsThe instruction gives proportions rather than absolute quantities: equal weights of veal parings and fat pork (fresh pork fatback or unsalted belly), bound with egg yolks and breadcrumbs, with chopped ham and herbs. A scant 1/4 cup breadcrumbs and one yolk per 8 oz of mixture is a reasonable starting point; it should hold a shape on a spoon, no wetter.
Fine herbs, cooked and rawRanhofer's No. 385 is a mixture of chopped herbs and aromatics sweated in butter until dry; check the numbered recipe for the exact composition. The sweetbread garnish uses the same herbs raw, added to the pan at the end.
Braising in buttered paperButtered paper (parchment works), tied at both ends as the recipe says. Braise in the ordinary way, covered, with a little liquid; a moderate oven, around 325F, suits, though Ranhofer gives no temperature. An hour and a half is plausible for a filled roll of this size, though check at one hour; 160F internal is a safe finish for a pork-and-egg forcemeat.
SweetbreadsBlanch the heart (round) sweetbreads in acidulated water, cool under a weight, peel the membrane, then cube. The final frying is brief -- two or three minutes over high heat to color, then deglaze with meat glaze and lemon. Prolonged cooking after blanching turns them dense.
Meat glaze and bechamelNo. 402 is stock reduced to a syrup; a good reduced brown stock stands in. Check No. 409 for what Ranhofer's bechamel actually contains -- period versions are not always plain milk. "Well-buttered" points to butter worked in at the finish. Pour it onto a warm platter and set the glazed paupiettes on top rather than napping them.
ServingThe recipe specifies no number of servings. Both elements want to go out hot; hold the paupiettes wrapped in their paper until the sweetbreads are done.

A Little History

The Epicurean (1894) is Charles Ranhofer's record of thirty-odd years as chef at Delmonico's in New York, and its habit of naming dishes after patrons, public figures and occasions is one of the more revealing things about the book: the kitchen was in the business of flattery as much as cookery. The Whittier here may be the poet John Greenleaf Whittier, though Ranhofer, as usual, offers no explanation. Paupiette is French kitchen usage for a thin slice of meat spread with forcemeat and rolled. The pairing of veal with sweetbreads was standard high-restaurant practice of the period, when offal was a luxury garnish rather than a thrift item, and the paper wrapper did the work that a modern cook might give to plastic wrap and a low oven: it held the roll's shape and kept the exterior from drying while the forcemeat set.