No. 2251

Croustades of Lamb Sweetbreads—Small

Petites Croustades de Ris d'Agneau

Keep warm eight to ten small channeled croustades made of astruc, each to be provided with a channeled and pointed cover. Cut into dice some recently glazed lamb's sweetbreads: put this salpicon into a small saucepan with half the quantity of cooked truffles cut the same as the sweet-breads. Put a few spoonfuls of good bechamel (No. 409) on to reduce, incorporating in the truffle broth and a little melted meat glaze (No. 402); when succulent and thick mix it with the salpicon, then remove it at once from the fire and fill up the small croustades, smoothing the preparation to a dome; leave to cool, cover with a thin layer of raw forcemeat (No. 89), bestrew with parmesan and bread-crumbs, pour melted butter over and warm slightly in a slow oven.

← No. 2250 Croustades of Chicken Livers with Madeira Miscellaneous Entrées No. 2252 Croustades of Reedbirds →

For the Modern Kitchen

A Delmonico's canapé-scale entrée: a thick creamed dice of sweetbread and truffle piped into little pastry cases, capped with forcemeat and gratinated. Almost every element is a cross-reference, so read the linked numbers before starting.

The hinge is the reductionThe béchamel must be reduced with the truffle liquor and glaze until it will hold a dome on a spoon before the salpicon goes in. If it is loose, the filling slumps, the forcemeat lid will not sit, and the croustade goes soggy from the inside. The recipe has you stir in the salpicon and then take the pan from the fire at once, so the sauce does not thin again.
AstrucNot a modern term. It appears to be one of the stiff croustade pastes used in the book for shaping small cases; the recipe itself gives no cross-reference for it. Baked tartlet shells of pâte brisée, small vol-au-vent cases, or cases cut from stale close-crumbed bread and dried in the oven all do the job.
Lamb sweetbreadsLamb thymus, sold by request from a good butcher and much smaller than veal. "Recently glazed" means already soaked in cold water, blanched, trimmed of membrane, pressed, then braised and rolled in reduced stock until shiny — a separate operation finished before this recipe begins.
Truffle brothThe liquor from tinned or jarred truffles, which carries a good deal of their flavour. If you are using fresh truffle there is no broth; compensate with a spoonful of Madeira reduced almost to nothing.
Meat glazeNo. 402 is brown stock reduced to a syrup that sets firm when cold. Commercial demi-glace or a good reduced veal stock stands in, but both are salty against a mild sweetbread; add a little at a time and season at the end.
Raw forcemeat capNo. 89 is a pounded forcemeat. Spread it thin and cold over a cold filling, otherwise it slides. Because it goes on raw, "warm slightly" is not enough by modern standards — bake until the forcemeat is firm and set through and the crumbs have coloured, about 15 to 20 minutes.
Slow ovenRoughly 300°F. That is right for gratinating without drying the case, but if the forcemeat is not setting, finish under the broiler for a moment rather than raising the oven and toughening the sweetbreads.
Yield and serviceEight to ten small croustades: one course for four people, or a passed hot hors d'oeuvre for eight. They are best eaten promptly; the pastry softens quickly under the sauce.

A Little History

Croustade is simply the French for a crust used as a container, and the technique of filling a shaped case with a salpicon — ingredients cut to uniform dice and bound with a reduced sauce — was the standard grammar of nineteenth-century garnish work. Charles Ranhofer, chef at Delmonico's in New York, published The Epicurean in 1894 as an encyclopaedic record of that kitchen's repertoire, which is why nearly every recipe points elsewhere by number: the book assumes a brigade with béchamel, meat glaze, forcemeat and glazed sweetbreads already standing ready. Lamb sweetbreads and truffles both signal the restaurant's market: sweetbreads required hours of soaking, trimming and pressing, and truffles were a luxury item outright. The "Miscellaneous Entrées" heading covered small hot dishes, and the size here — eight to ten little cases with pointed lids — belongs to a meal of many courses rather than a plated main.