No. 1762

Lamb Sweetbreads a la Sevigne

Ris d'Agneau a la Sevigne

Soak and parboil some hearts of lamb's sweetbreads, lay them in a sautoir lined with bardes of fat pork, sliced carrots and onions and a garnished bunch of parsley (No. 123); moisten to their heighth with some stock (No. 194a), boil, skim and finish cooking in a slow oven. Put them to press in round rings; when cold take them out, cover with a thick Villeroi (No. 560), let get cold and then dip in beaten eggs, then in bread-crumbs. Poach some quenelle forcemeat (No. 92) in Savarin molds decorated with truffles, unmold and fill the hollow centers with a salpicon of truffles and mushrooms, cover over with a supreme sauce (No. 547). Have the sweetbreads fried in clarified butter and laid around the garnishing.

← No. 1761 Lamb Sweetbreads a la Joinville Lamb No. 1763 Lambs' Tails a la Conti →

For the Modern Kitchen

A multi-day Delmonico's construction: braised sweetbreads coated in a setting sauce, crumbed and fried, arranged around forcemeat rings. Nothing here is difficult, but the sequence depends on cold-setting stages that cannot be rushed.

The hinge: the Villeroi must set hardVilleroi (No. 560) is a thick reduced velouty-type sauce, generally allemande-based, cooked down until it coats heavily, then used to coat the cold pressed sweetbreads. If it is thin, or if the coated pieces are breaded before they are cold through, the coating slides off in the butter and the dish collapses. The recipe says only to 'let get cold' before egging and crumbing — allow enough time in the cold for the coat to set firm.
"Hearts" of lamb's sweetbreadsThe heart is the round nut-shaped gland, as opposed to the ragged elongated throat piece. Lamb sweetbreads are small and rarely sold in the United States; veal sweetbreads, trimmed into rounds, are the usual substitute, though larger and slower to cook. Soak in several changes of cold water until pale, then parboil briefly and peel the membrane while warm.
Bardes of fat porkThin sheets of pork fatback used to line the pan and keep the meat from catching. Unsmoked salt pork sliced thin, or a sheet of caul fat, does the same job; ordinary bacon brings smoke the dish does not want.
Oven temperatureThe recipe calls only for a 'slow oven', conventionally taken as somewhere around 300F. The sweetbreads are already moistened to their height with stock, so they are braising rather than roasting; no time is given, and they are done when tender enough to press.
Sautoir and pressingA sautoir is a straight-sided shallow pan, not a saute pan with sloping sides. Pressing "in round rings" means setting each cooked sweetbread inside a metal ring on a tray, laying a second tray and a weight on top, and chilling until cold and firm. This is what gives the flat, even disc that takes a smooth coat of sauce.
Savarin moldsSmall ring molds with a hollow center, the same shape used for the yeast cake. Any small ring mold or silicone savarin form works. The forcemeat (No. 92) is poached gently in a water bath, not boiled, or it will curdle and weep.
SalpiconSimply a mixture of ingredients cut into small even dice, here truffles and mushrooms, which fill the hollow ring and are then covered over with the supreme sauce. The dice should be no larger than a pea so the filling sits neatly in the ring.
FryingClarified butter is specified because whole butter's milk solids burn at the temperature needed to color breadcrumbs. Fry at moderate heat, around 325-340F, until deep gold; the interior is already cooked and only needs warming.
YieldRanhofer wrote for restaurant service and gives no count. Figure one sweetbread heart and one forcemeat ring per person, six as a course.

A Little History

The Epicurean (1894) is Charles Ranhofer's record of thirty-odd years as chef at Delmonico's in New York, and this entry shows the house method in miniature: every component points to another number in the book, so the recipe is less a set of instructions than an assembly order for a kitchen that already has stock, forcemeat, supreme sauce and a Villeroi on hand. The name honors Marie de Rabutin-Chantal, marquise de Sevigne, the seventeenth-century letter writer whose name was attached to a scattering of nineteenth-century garnishes in the French repertoire; as with most such dedications there is no documented link between the woman and the dish. The Villeroi treatment itself is generally traced to the ducs de Villeroy and was a staple of grand-service cooking precisely because it could be done in advance, held cold, and fried to order.