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Sweetbreads, Senora Diaz
Blanch and trim six heart sweetbreads. Cut twenty-four pieces raw ham one inch long by a sixth of an inch thick, then with a larding needle insert the strips of ham through the sweetbreads. Line bottom of a frying pan with a sliced white onion, one sliced leek and two sliced branches celery, add half ounce butter and lightly fry five minutes. Lay breads on top. Season with half teaspoon salt, saltspoon cayenne pepper and three saltspoons curry powder. Moisten with three-quarters pint of broth. Cover breads with buttered paper and set in a lively oven thirty-five minutes. Have six tartlet crusts. Remove breads from oven, place one in each tartlet on a dish, cut six sweet Spanish peppers in half and lightly fry in a teaspoon butter two minutes on each side, then arrange them on top of the breads and keep hot. Mix in a small saucepan a tablespoon melted butter with a tablespoon flour. Strain the sweetbread gravy into this pan, add a half gill cream and two ounces peeled and lightly browned sweet almonds, mix well and let boil ten minutes, pour sauce over sweetbreads and serve.
A Delmonico's-style braise dressed up with ham lardons, curry and almonds. The technique is sound, but the units and a few unspoken assumptions need translating.
- Blanching is not optional"Blanch and trim" compresses several hours of work: soak the sweetbreads in several changes of cold water until they run pale, bring them slowly to a bare simmer in fresh water for 3-5 minutes, then plunge into ice water and peel away the membrane and fat. Press them between two plates under a weight in the refrigerator for an hour or two so they hold their shape when larded and sliced.
- "Heart" sweetbreadsThe "heart" sweetbread is the plumper, rounder gland, usually identified with the pancreas (the noix), as against the ragged throat sweetbread, the thymus; older sources are not consistent in the terminology. Order them by weight from a butcher, since supermarkets rarely stock them.
- Larding with raw hamRaw ham here means an air-dried ham such as prosciutto, serrano or a country ham - not raw fresh pork. A larding needle draws the strips through the flesh; if you have none, cut slits with a paring knife and push the strips in with the back of a skewer. Four strips per sweetbread.
- Saltspoons and gillsA saltspoon is generally reckoned a quarter teaspoon, so the seasoning is about three-quarters of a teaspoon of curry powder and a pinch of cayenne. Half a gill of cream is a quarter cup; three-quarters of a pint of broth is about 1.5 cups.
- A lively oven"Lively" implies a fairly hot oven, though the old terms do not convert precisely; somewhere in the region of 375-400F suits the dish. Thirty-five minutes under buttered paper should leave the sweetbreads firm and just cooked through, not dried out.
- Buttered paperA cartouche of buttered parchment cut to the pan, laid directly on the sweetbreads. It keeps them from colouring and browning while the aromatics beneath give up their moisture.
- Sweet Spanish peppersSmall, mild red peppers - jarred piquillos or roasted pimientos are the closest thing now. Two minutes a side in butter is only to warm and gloss them.
- The sauceThe roux is made first and the strained braising liquid added to it, as in a classical velouté; whisk the hot liquid in a little at a time to avoid lumps. Ten minutes of boiling cooks out the raw flour taste and reduces the sauce to a coating consistency.
- YieldSix servings, one sweetbread per tartlet. Bake or buy the tartlet shells in advance and warm them, since the assembly happens quickly at the end.
The International Cook Book was compiled by Alexander Filippini, who spent many years at Delmonico's in New York, and its foreign-titled recipes read less as an ethnographic survey than as a catalogue of restaurant dishes bearing foreign names and the names of patrons and notables. Dishes titled for a Señora, a Baroness or a Prince were a common flourish of the grande cuisine kitchen; the attribution here most likely reflects a compliment paid in the dining room rather than a record of a Mexican or Spanish household recipe, and the "Spanish" element amounts to the sweet peppers, the almonds and the ham. Curry powder was by then long established in Anglo-American kitchens and was used as a warming seasoning rather than as a claim to Indian cookery. Sweetbreads were a luxury item, a mark of an expensive menu, and the practice of larding them with ham and serving them in a pastry case in a cream sauce belongs to the classical French repertoire that Delmonico's traded on.