No. 940

Sweetbread Patties, French Style

Bouchees de Ris de Veau a la Francaise

Soak and blanch some sweetbreads in hot water, then refresh and let get cold before cutting them up into thin slices; season, cook or fry on both sides in oil, without browning, then press to a quarter inch thick when cool, and cut them into small quarter inch dice. Lay this salpicon in a small saucepan, and add to it half its quantity of cooked mushrooms, and a quarter as much salted but unsmoked red beef tongue cut the same size, dilute this salpicon with a sauce made of broth (No.194a), and fecula which has previously been diluted with cold broth; let simmer for a few moments, season and use it to fill some puff paste bouchees made with beef suet instead of butter (No.146); range and dress them pyramidically on folded napkins, heating them for a few seconds at the oven door before sending to the table.

← No. 939 Scollop, Oyster, Clam, or Mussel Patties Hot Side Dishes No. 941 Turbigo Patties →

For the Modern Kitchen

Ranhofer assumes a brigade that already knows how to handle sweetbreads and has stock and puff paste standing by. The hinge is the pressing: unless the cooked slices are weighted flat and completely cold, they will not cut into clean dice and the filling turns to mush.

Soaking and blanchingModern practice is to soak the sweetbreads in several changes of cold water for 3-4 hours to draw out blood, then start them in cold salted water and bring just to a simmer for 3-5 minutes rather than dropping them into hot water. Refresh in ice water, peel away membrane and gristle, then press between two plates with a weight until cold.
SalpiconThe word simply means a mixture of small, uniform dice bound with sauce. Taking Ranhofer's proportions to refer back to the sweetbread, the ratio is 4 parts sweetbread, 2 parts cooked mushroom, 1 part tongue, all cut at a quarter inch.
The tongue"Salted but unsmoked red beef tongue" is brine-cured (corned) tongue, pink from the cure and boiled until tender. A smoked tongue will dominate the dish; if unsmoked cured tongue is unavailable, lean boiled ham is the closest substitute in texture and salt.
FeculaFecula is starch, in period usage generally potato starch. Slake it in cold broth before adding, as directed, and simmer only briefly; starch-bound sauces thin out and turn slack if held at a boil.
The sauce referenceNo. 194a is the broth Ranhofer sends the cook to; the sauce is made by binding it with the fecula. A well-reduced veal or chicken stock, lightly bound with the starch to a nappe consistency, gives the same result. The filling should be thick enough to sit in the case without weeping.
Suet puff pasteThe cross-reference to No. 146 substitutes beef suet for butter, which gives a firmer, more heat-tolerant shell that holds up when the cases are filled and reheated. Ordinary all-butter puff pastry works, though filled cases soften faster and should go to the table promptly.
BoucheesA bouchee is a "mouthful" -- a small puff paste case about 1 1/2 inches across, cut and baked with a lid, distinct from the larger vol-au-vent. Bake the shells empty and fill them just before serving.
"At the oven door"This means a brief warming, not baking: the recipe allows only a few seconds at the oven door, enough to take the chill off the assembled patties without drying the filling or collapsing the pastry.
YieldThe recipe gives no quantities. A pair of veal sweetbreads with mushrooms and tongue might fill something like 18-24 small bouchees, but this is an estimate rather than anything Ranhofer states.

A Little History

Charles Ranhofer spent some thirty years as chef at Delmonico's in New York and published The Epicurean in 1894 as a complete record of that kitchen's repertoire, numbered and cross-referenced like a reference work. Sweetbreads -- the thymus, and sometimes the pancreas, of a young calf -- were among the most prestigious items on nineteenth-century American menus, expensive because each animal yields so little and because they spoil quickly, which is why the book gives them dozens of separate preparations. The pattern here is thoroughly of its period: an offal delicacy diced into a salpicon, stretched with mushrooms and cured tongue, bound with a starch-thickened broth and served in individual pastry cases stacked on a folded napkin. "A la Francaise" in Ranhofer's usage generally signals the classical French treatment rather than any single regional dish, and the suet pastry variant suggests a case built to survive the trip from kitchen to dining room in a large restaurant.