No. 1561

Sweetbreads a la Montpensier

Ris de Veau a la Montpensier

Have six heart sweetbreads of equal size; soak them in cold water and afterward lay them in a saucepan containing cold water and parboil until they harden, pare and let cool in the press (Fig. 71). Lard three of them with fine salt pork (No. 3, Fig. 52) and the other three with truffles cut the same size; braise them as for a la Conti (No. 1554), and when cooked and glazed, strain off the stock free it from its fat and reduce it to a half-glaze. Dress the sweetbreads around a rice croustade garnished with small quenelles and mushrooms thickened with veloute (No. 415) and between each sweetbread lay a whole peeled and glazed truffle; dress on top of the garnishing a pyramid of truffles and surround the base with a circle of mushroom heads; glaze the truffles and sweetbreads. Serve with a separate tureen of veloute sauce (No. 415) reduced with the sweetbread stock, passed through a tammy.

← No. 1560 Sweetbreads a la Montebello Veal No. 1562 Sweetbreads, Neapolitan Style →

For the Modern Kitchen

A full Escoffier-era garnished platter, written in the shorthand of a professional kitchen that assumed stock, veloute and quenelle forcemeat were already standing by. Strip it back and the core technique is simple: soak, blanch, press, lard, braise.

"Heart" sweetbreadsRanhofer wants the plump rounded kernel (noix de veau) rather than the elongated throat piece; usage differs as to whether the two are lobes of the thymus or thymus and pancreas. Order noix de veau or heart sweetbreads specifically; expect roughly 5-8 oz each, and six of them will serve six as a course.
Soaking and blanchingSeveral hours in repeated changes of cold water draws out blood and keeps the meat pale. Ranhofer starts them in cold water and parboils only "until they harden," i.e. until the surface firms enough to peel the membrane cleanly. Boiling hard past that point squeezes them tough.
The pressFig. 71 is the press Ranhofer refers to; the text does not describe it, and two plates and a weight do the same job. Sandwich the peeled sweetbreads between trays with a couple of pounds on top and chill until cold. Pressing is what gives them a firm, even shape that will hold a lardoon and a clean slice.
LardingFine salt pork and truffle cut to the same gauge, threaded through the flesh with a larding needle. Modern salt pork can be aggressively salty; taste it and soak if needed before cutting your strips. Barding with a thin sheet of fatback over the top is the practical substitute if you have no needle.
Braise as for a la ContiThat means a buttered bed of aromatics, a shallow pool of veal stock, a buttered paper lid and gentle oven cooking, basting near the end so the reducing stock lacquers the surface. Ranhofer gives neither temperature nor time; judge by feel. Sweetbreads do not need long moist cooking.
Half-glazeDegrease the strained braising liquid and reduce until it coats a spoon and is faintly tacky. Half of it glazes the sweetbreads and truffles, the rest goes into the veloute.
Veloute and the tammyNo. 415 is a white roux slackened with veal stock and simmered until it drops clean off the spoon. A tammy was a woven cloth wrung between two people; a fine chinois pressed with a ladle, or a blender then a strainer, gives the same texture.
Truffles, realisticallyA pyramid of whole peeled truffles is 1890s banquet economics. Preserved truffle peelings and a few slices, or a good quantity of roasted mushrooms with a little truffle for scent, keep the shape of the presentation without the price.
The rice croustadeNot a pastry case but a thick, well-seasoned rice paste moulded, chilled and browned to make a low pedestal. A shallow ring of pilaf pressed into an oiled mould and turned out is the accessible version.

A Little History

Charles Ranhofer ran the kitchen at Delmonico's in New York, and The Epicurean (1894) is essentially the house repertoire of that restaurant written down at length, garnishes and all. Names like a la Montpensier belong to the nineteenth-century French practice of labelling a set garnish after a noble house or a place, so that a chef reading the menu knew at once what would be on the plate; the Montpensier title is generally attached to compositions built on truffle and asparagus tips, though as here the truffle does the heavy work. Sweetbreads were prized offal in this period, expensive and delicate enough to carry a formal entree, and the run of neighbouring recipes in the book, Montebello, Conti, Neapolitan, shows how one carefully prepared base was dressed a dozen different ways to fill out a long banquet service.