No. 1574

Sweetbreads Larded and Glazed with Cepes Bordelaise

Ris de Veau Piques Glaces aux Cepes Bordelaise

Lard with larding pork (No. 3, Fig. 52) some equal-sized sweetbreads; blanch and cool them off under a weight; range them very close to one another in a sautoir lined with salt pork, vegetables and minced onions; moisten to half the heighth with beef stock (No. 194a) and let the liquid fall to glaze; moisten once more and finish cooking in a moderate oven, or else with hot fire underneath and on top of the cover; basting the sweetbreads frequently in order to glaze them nicely. When done drain, dress on a garnishing of cepes a la Bordelaise.

Cepes a la Bordelaise.—Sauté in oil some cepes, when partly done add some finely chopped shallots, season with salt and pepper, add chopped parsley and lemon juice. Serve the stock, well reduced and thickened with brown sauce (No. 414), in a sauce tureen.

← No. 1573 Sweetbreads in Papers Veal No. 1575 Sweetbreads Larded and Glazed with Gravy →

For the Modern Kitchen

Ranhofer assumes a professional larder and a coal range: sweetbreads already soaked and pressed, a stockpot on the back burner, and a braising pan that takes fire on its lid. The technique translates cleanly once those assumptions are unpacked.

The hinge: press them coldBlanching and cooling "under a weight" is what makes the dish work. Soak the sweetbreads in several changes of cold water until pale, blanch 3-4 minutes, drop into ice water, peel away membrane and fat, then press between two plates with a weight on top in the refrigerator for at least two hours. Unpressed sweetbreads stay spongy and will not slice or glaze.
"Piqué" and larding pork"Piqué" and larding pork -- No. 3, Fig. 52 is a cross-reference to one of the book's illustrations of larding pork and larding tools; the number designates a particular grade of strip. If you have neither larding needle nor fat back, wrap each sweetbread in a thin sheet of pork fat or blanched bacon and tie it; the point is to keep the surface from drying while it glazes.
SautoirA shallow, straight-sided pan with a lid, not a modern casserole dish. The sweetbreads must sit in a single tight layer so the reducing stock stays deep enough to baste with.
Oven heat"Moderate oven" in a book of this date generally means somewhere in the region of 325-350F; Ranhofer gives no thermometer readings. The alternative he offers, fire underneath and on the cover, is a braising pan with hot coals heaped on the lid; a covered pan in the oven does the same job.
Glazing, in plain termsAdd stock to halfway up the sweetbreads, let it cook down to a syrupy film, add more stock, and repeat while basting. Total cooking is roughly 40 to 60 minutes for veal sweetbreads of even size. They are done when a skewer slides in with no resistance.
The stock and sauce referencesNo. 194a is a plain brown beef stock; No. 414 is Ranhofer's espagnole. A good unsalted beef or veal stock and a spoonful of demi-glace will carry the pan juices. Reduce the braising liquid hard before thickening, and salt only at the end since it concentrates as it glazes.
CepesCepes are porcini, Boletus edulis. Fresh ones appear briefly in autumn; otherwise soak 2 oz dried porcini, squeeze them dry, and sauté in olive oil until the water is gone before the shallots go in. Adding shallot, parsley and lemon at the end rather than the start is deliberate: shallot burns in hot oil and the lemon is meant to stay sharp.
YieldReckon one whole veal sweetbread per person; four sweetbreads with about a pound of mushrooms serves four as a main course. Serve the sauce separately as written, so the glaze on the sweetbreads is not washed off.

A Little History

The Epicurean (1894) is Charles Ranhofer's record of thirty-odd years as chef at Delmonico's in New York, and the veal chapter shows how central sweetbreads were to that kind of cooking: mild, expensive, quick to spoil, and therefore a mark of a kitchen with good suppliers and cold storage. Larding and glazing was the standard grand-restaurant treatment, a way of giving a bland organ meat both fat and a dark, lacquered surface. The garnish points elsewhere: a la bordelaise as used here means the Gascon-Bordelais habit of sautéing cepes in oil with shallot, parsley and lemon rather than butter, a preparation still made the same way in southwest France in porcini season. Pairing an American hotel kitchen's glazed sweetbreads with a regional French mushroom dish is characteristic of Ranhofer, who catalogued classical French method for a clientele that expected to recognise the names on the menu.