No. 2226

Brochettes of Sweetbreads

Brochettes de Ris de Veau

Blanch the sweetbreads, suppress the windpipes and fat and place them under a weight to reduce to the thickness of an inch; when cold cut them lengthwise into slices an inch square; cut these into pieces three-eighths of an inch thick; season with salt, pepper, oil and chopped parsley; run each square on small silver skewers (Fig. 176), alternating them with a thin piece of bacon cut an inch square; besprinkle with white bread-crumbs and broil over a slow fire for fifteen to eighteen minutes, having all four sides equally cooked. Dress on a hot dish, pour maitre d'hotel butter over (No. 581) and garnish with slices of lemon.

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For the Modern Kitchen

Ranhofer assumes you have already broken down a whole sweetbread; the recipe begins mid-process. The hinge is the pressing step, which is what makes clean cubes possible at all.

Sourcing sweetbreadsVeal sweetbreads are the thymus (throat) and pancreas (heart or belly) glands; the heart sweetbread is rounder and easier to slice into squares. Order them from a butcher and use within a day, as they are highly perishable.
Before you beginThe recipe skips soaking. Sweetbreads should be soaked in several changes of cold water for a few hours until the water runs clear, then blanched 3-5 minutes in salted water and refreshed in ice water before the membrane, ducts and fat are pulled away.
"Suppress the windpipes"In Ranhofer's translated English this appears to mean the tough tubes, ducts and connective tissue attached to the gland. Anything that feels gristly under the knife comes out.
PressingSet the peeled sweetbreads flat between two trays or plates with a weight on top and chill several hours. Pressing is what makes clean, firm cubes possible; unpressed sweetbreads tend to break up when cut and skewered. An inch thick is the stated target; thinner is workable.
CuttingThe instruction reads oddly but resolves to squares roughly one inch on a side and three-eighths of an inch thick, each paired with a bacon square of the same footprint. Slice the bacon thin so it renders in the time the sweetbread needs.
Broiling"A slow fire" means moderate heat: well-banked coals, or a broiler with the brochettes set well back from the element. The recipe's fifteen to eighteen minutes suits that gentle heat, turning all four faces; over direct high heat the crumbs scorch before the interior warms through.
SkewersSilver brochettes were table service, presented in the meat. Metal skewers work; wooden ones need a 30-minute soak and will still char over that cooking time.
Maitre d'hotel butterRanhofer's No. 581 is butter creamed with chopped parsley, lemon juice, salt and pepper. Make it ahead, chill it, and let it melt over the hot brochettes.
YieldThe recipe gives no quantities; a pair of veal sweetbreads will fill a few skewers, enough for a small entree course in the older sense: a small plated dish served between fish and roast.

A Little History

Charles Ranhofer ran the kitchen at Delmonico's in New York for some three decades, and The Epicurean (1894) is essentially the restaurant's working repertoire set down at encyclopedic length, French names first. Brochette simply means skewer, and the form was a standard way of turning an expensive, awkwardly shaped offal into a neat, portioned, individually served item, with bacon supplying the fat that sweetbreads lack. Veal sweetbreads were a luxury item in this period, and appear repeatedly across the book braised, larded, in patties and in cases. The habit of alternating a rich meat with bacon on a skewer and finishing it with crumbs and a compound butter is characteristic nineteenth-century restaurant practice; a comparable treatment appears immediately before this one, applied to oysters.