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Sweetbreads En Cocotte, Au Porto
Blanch and trim six heart sweetbreads and place in a saucepan with a half gill white wine, two gills broth, a few tarragon leaves, half teaspoon salt, two saltspoons white pepper and a half ounce butter, cover pan and let simmer for twenty-five minutes. Remove, place breads in six cocotte dishes, then divide a gill of port wine evenly in the six cocottes. Mix on a plate three saltspoons salt, a saltspoon cayenne and a saltspoon grated nutmeg, evenly sprinkle over the breads, cover with a little cream, arrange dishes on a tin, set in oven to bake for fifteen minutes, remove and serve.
A Delmonico-era dish that reads oddly only because of its units and its assumption that the reader has already soaked and pressed the sweetbreads. Sorted out, it is a straightforward braise finished in individual dishes.
- The measuresA gill is half a cup (4 fl oz), so half a gill of white wine is 1/4 cup and two gills of broth is 1 cup; the gill of port divides to about 4 teaspoons per dish. A saltspoon is 1/4 teaspoon, making the seasoning mix 3/4 teaspoon salt with 1/4 teaspoon each cayenne and nutmeg for all six.
- "Heart sweetbreads"The older trade split the gland in two: the round, solid "heart" sweetbread is the pancreas, the ragged "throat" one the thymus. Butchers today generally sell veal sweetbreads without the distinction, so order about 1.5 to 2 lb and choose the plump, compact lobes.
- Blanch means more than blanchThe single word covers the whole preparation the book took for granted: soak in several changes of cold water for a few hours until the water runs clear, simmer 3 to 5 minutes, plunge into ice water, then peel off the outer membrane and the tougher connective tissue. Pressing them flat under a plate and a weight for an hour gives the firm texture the recipe expects.
- Oven heatNo temperature is given at all, and the gas and coal ranges of the period had no thermostat. A moderate oven, around 350F, is a reasonable modern reading; the cocottes are only heating through and reducing the cream and port.
- CocottesSmall individual ovenproof dishes with lids, about 6 to 8 oz. Ramekins work; set them on a sheet pan as directed so the port and cream do not slop.
- Watch the total cooking timeTwenty-five minutes of simmering plus fifteen in the oven is a great deal for a gland that is already blanched. Fifteen to eighteen minutes at a bare simmer, then the oven stage, keeps them creamy rather than bouncy.
- Do not waste the braising liquidThe recipe abandons the wine, broth and tarragon once the sweetbreads come out. Reduce it hard and add it to the cocottes with the cream; otherwise the finished dish tastes of port and nutmeg alone.
- YieldSix cocottes, which is six first courses rather than six dinners. Serve with toast points or plain rice.
The book is Alexander Filippini's, and Filippini spent years in the Delmonico's kitchens in New York, which is why a supposedly international collection keeps drifting toward high French service of the 1880s and 1890s. Sweetbreads were then a luxury organ meat, served at the front of a formal menu; cooking them en cocotte, in a small covered dish that goes straight to the table, was a fashionable way to keep delicate things hot without a sauce boat. The port is what the title turns on: it goes in at the end, after the braise, rather than being reduced away with the aromatics -- though here it does bake with the cream for a further fifteen minutes. Offal of this kind fell out of American home cooking over the twentieth century, and sweetbreads are now a special order in most places, which is the main obstacle to making the dish rather than anything in the method.