No. 2272

Sweetbread Cutlets a la Talleyrand

Cotelettes de Ris de Veau a la Talleyrand

Braise some unlarded sweetbreads and set under a weight to get cold; cut one pound of these into quarter-inch dice-shaped pieces with the same quantity of artichoke bottoms, and mushrooms cut the same, and four ounces of truffles cut in three-sixteenths inch dice and mingled with a bechamel sauce (No. 409) thickened with egg-yolks and fine butter. After this preparation is cold divide it into equal parts and shape them as cutlets; dip in egg and bread-crumbs, fry to a fine color; dress in a circle, garnish with favor frills (No. 10), pouring a cream of soubise sauce (No. 543) in the center.

← No. 2271 Sweetbread Cutlets, Modern Style Miscellaneous Entrées No. 2273 Veal Cutlets, Pogarski →

For the Modern Kitchen

This is a croquette in cutlet form: everything is cooked first, bound with a thick egg-enriched béchamel, chilled solid, then breaded and fried. The hinge is the binder — if the sauce is not stiff enough or the mixture not thoroughly cold, the cutlets burst in the fat.

Sweetbreads firstVeal sweetbreads need soaking in several changes of cold water for a few hours, then a brief blanch, then peeling of membrane and gristle before they are braised. "Unlarded" simply means not threaded with strips of pork fat, as larger pieces for serving whole often were.
Under a weightPressing the braised sweetbreads flat between two plates with a weight on top while they cool firms them so they dice cleanly instead of crumbling. Do it in the refrigerator and give them several hours.
Artichoke bottomsThese are the trimmed, cooked hearts of large globe artichokes with choke and leaves removed. Good-quality tinned or frozen artichoke bottoms are the practical substitute; marinated artichokes in oil are too acidic here.
TrufflesFour ounces of truffle is a luxury proportion typical of Delmonico's kitchen. Preserved truffle peelings, or an ounce of fresh truffle plus a few drops of truffle-infused oil, will carry the flavour; sautéed dark mushrooms alone make an honest dish under a different name.
The binding sauceBéchamel No. 409 thickened with yolks and butter should be reduced until it mounds on the spoon — closer to a pastry-cream consistency than a pouring sauce. Fold the diced garnish in off the heat so the yolks do not curdle, then spread the mixture no more than an inch deep in a buttered tray to chill.
Chilling and shapingThe mixture must be refrigerated until firm, at least four hours and preferably overnight, before shaping into flattened cutlet ovals. The recipe calls for a single coating of egg and crumbs; breading twice is a modern precaution that gives a shell better able to hold in deep fat.
FryingFry in oil or clarified fat at 350–375°F, two or three at a time, for about two minutes to a deep gold. The interior is already cooked; you are only heating it through and colouring the crust.
Frills and sauceThe "favor frills" are the paper cuffs once slipped onto the narrow end of a cutlet, easily skipped. Soubise is a purée of stewed onion enriched with cream, poured into the ring of cutlets rather than over them.
YieldA pound of sweetbreads with an equal quantity of artichoke bottoms and mushrooms makes a large amount of mixture, so the number of cutlets depends entirely on how big they are shaped. 'Entree' here is used in the older sense of a course between fish and roast.

A Little History

Sweetbreads — the thymus and pancreas of a calf — were among the most prized items on a nineteenth-century restaurant menu, delicate, expensive and endlessly adaptable, and Charles Ranhofer's The Epicurean (1894) devotes dozens of numbered preparations to them from his years at Delmonico's in New York. The Talleyrand name attaches to a whole family of French garnishes involving truffle and, often, macaroni or a rich cream sauce, and is generally traced to Charles-Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord, the diplomat whose table under his chef Antonin Carême was a byword for luxury; like most such attributions it says more about a dish's ambitions than its actual origin. What the recipe really shows is the logic of the classic kitchen: nothing is wasted and nothing stands alone, and this composed cutlet is what braised sweetbreads, béchamel and soubise become when assembled for a new course.