No. 1576

Sweetbreads, Parisian Style

Ris de Veau a la Parisienne

Stud one-half of the sweetbreads with truffles, envelope them in thin bardes of fat pork, and lard the other half; braise them as for larded and glazed chicken with gravy (No. 1575). Decorate a flat border mold with fanciful cuts of truffles, fill it up with forcemeat (No. 80) and poach it in a bain-marie. When ready to serve, invert the mold on a dish, unmold and lay the sweetbreads on the border, filling in the empty space with minced truffles and mushrooms mixed with a brown sauce (No. 414) reduced with Madeira and lay around the outside of the border some whole mushrooms and truffles glazed with meat glaze (No. 402). Serve a separate sauce-boat of brown sauce reduced with the stock and Madeira wine and the truffle and mushroom parings, strained through a tammy.

← No. 1575 Sweetbreads Larded and Glazed with Gravy Veal No. 1577 Sweetbreads Studded, Spanish Style →

For the Modern Kitchen

Ranhofer writes for a brigade with stockpots already going, and this entry leans on four cross-references. Read it as an assembly plan: braised sweetbreads set on a poached forcemeat ring, with a Madeira-reduced brown sauce.

The step the recipe omitsNothing here covers the preliminary work, because the kitchen took it for granted. Sweetbreads must be soaked in several changes of cold water until they run pale, blanched briefly, refreshed, peeled of membrane and fat, then pressed flat between two plates under a weight for a few hours. Unpressed sweetbreads will not hold a lardoon or a truffle stud, and they will not slice cleanly.
Which sweetbreads to buyThe heart or "kernel" sweetbread (the pancreas, sold as noix) is the round, compact one and the only sensible choice for studding and larding. The throat sweetbread is the ragged thymus and is better used chopped into forcemeat or croquettes.
Bardes and lardingA barde is a thin sheet of pork back fat wrapped round the meat to keep it moist; unsalted fatback sliced on a slicer is closest, and blanched thin-cut streaky bacon will do. Larding the other half means threading strips of chilled fatback through the surface with a larding needle. Freeze the fat firm first or the strips tear.
Studding with trufflesStudding is done with a small knife or an apple corer: pierce the sweetbread and push in a peg of truffle so it sits flush. Fresh black truffle at this scale is a serious expense; preserved black truffle in its own juice is the closest honest substitute, and the juice belongs in the sauce.
BraisingThe recipe defers to No. 1575, which is not reproduced here; expect a braise with aromatics and stock, finished with glaze until the surface is lacquered. Ranhofer gives no temperature or timing, and any modern figure is a guess; cook them through — offal is not served rare.
The border moldThis is a shallow ring mold, not a casserole. Butter it, press the cut truffle shapes against the sides and base so they show when inverted, then fill with forcemeat No. 80 (a pounded forcemeat of the quenelle type, though the text of No. 80 is not reproduced here). Poach in a bain-marie until set, and rest it a few minutes before unmolding or it will slump; Ranhofer specifies neither temperature nor time.
SaucesNo. 414 is a brown sauce in the espagnole family; No. 402 is glace de viande, veal stock reduced to a syrup. A good reduced veal stock covers both jobs. "Reduced with Madeira" means the wine goes in and is boiled down, not stirred in at the end.
TammyA tammy is a woven cloth strainer wrung between two people. A fine chinois with a ladle, or a conical strainer lined with muslin, gives the same result.
Quantity and serviceRanhofer gives no yield. One dressed heart sweetbread of about 5 to 6 oz is a reasonable single portion; a ring mold of this kind would serve several. It is a hot entrée, meant to go out whole.

A Little History

This comes from Charles Ranhofer's The Epicurean (1894), the vast record of his years as chef at Delmonico's in New York, and it is a fair sample of how that kitchen worked: numbered components, endless cross-references, and a finished dish that is really six preparations stacked into one. The bordure — a ring of forcemeat decorated with cut truffle and unmolded onto the platter — was a standard piece of nineteenth-century service, giving the garnish a wall to sit inside and the whole thing a shape that survived the trip from kitchen to table. "À la Parisienne" in this period is less a regional claim than a badge of high-French treatment: truffles, Madeira, glaze, and a sauce sent separately in a boat. Sweetbreads themselves were prized well before Delmonico's and remain so in French cookery; the labor of soaking, blanching and pressing them is exactly the kind of work a large brigade could absorb invisibly, which is why the recipe never mentions it.