Sweetbreads a la Princesse

Ranhofer writes for a brigade with stockpots already going, so the instructions are essentially an assembly note. The work is in the components, and the sweetbreads themselves need a full day's head start.

• The hinge: prepare the sweetbreads properlyBefore anything else, soak the sweetbreads in several changes of cold water for several hours until they run pale, blanch them briefly in simmering water, refresh in ice water, peel off the outer membrane and gristle, then press between two plates under a weight in the refrigerator for a few hours. Skipping the pressing gives you a shapeless kernel that will not slice or sit on an artichoke bottom.
• "Kernel" and which gland to buyThe kernel is the heart sweetbread, the rounded compact gland; the throat sweetbread is elongated and stringier. Ask the butcher for veal heart sweetbreads, allow about 5 to 6 oz per person raw, and use them within a day of buying.
• Larded and glazedThe cross-reference is to the larded and glazed treatment, whose text is not on this page: larding means threading strips of firm pork fatback through the surface with a larding needle, and the glaze comes from braising and repeatedly basting with the reducing stock until the surface takes a shining coat. Modern fatback is often too soft to lard neatly; barding, that is wrapping the gland in a thin sheet of fat or bacon and tying it, gets you close, and the glaze comes from brushing with reduced braising liquid in the last ten minutes.
• Braise gently, never boilSweetbreads want a bare tremble. No temperature is given anywhere in the recipe; a low oven of around 325F works, roughly 25 to 35 minutes for pressed kernels depending on size. Hard simmering makes them grainy and squeaky.
• Artichoke bottomsFresh globe artichokes turned down to the bottom are the original; jarred or frozen bottoms are an honest substitute and only need warming through in the white stock. Whichever you use, keep them in acidulated water before cooking or they blacken.
• The sauces, in current termsHalf-glaze is demi-glace, a brown veal stock reduced with espagnole until it coats. Veloute here is a white veal stock thickened with a blond roux, finished off the heat with butter; adding the reduced braising liquid is what carries the flavour of the sweetbreads into it. Do not let a buttered veloute return to the boil or it will break.
• White stockNo. 182 is a white stock: bones and aromatics that have not been browned, so it stays pale. A good unsalted chicken stock stands in without damage.
• NoisettesSmall rounds cut from the loin or trimmed tenderloin, here braised rather than sauteed so they match the sweetbreads in texture. Cut them no more than an inch across; the garnish sits inside the ring and should not compete.
• Yield and serviceRanhofer gives none. Figure one sweetbread kernel on one artichoke bottom per person, arranged in a ring on a warmed platter, with two or three noisettes each in the centre. It belongs to the entree course in the 1890s sense of that word, one dish in a sequence rather than a main.