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Timbale of Sweetbreads, New-Yorkaise
Bone and skin breasts of a tender fowl, finely chop with half pound tender, raw veal, place in mortar, season with a teaspoon salt, saltspoon each cayenne, grated nutmeg and ground mixed spice. Thoroughly pound to a smooth paste, add two ounces bread panade, four egg yolks, and pound again until thoroughly amalgamated. Rub through sieve into a bowl, set bowl on ice, gradually pour in one and a half gills cold cream, sharply mixing with wooden spoon while adding, then keep on ice till required.
Have six blanched heart sweetbreads place a mirepoix at bottom of frying pan, lay breads on top, season with a teaspoon salt and half teaspoon white pepper. Moisten with a quart white broth and let slowly boil for thirty-five minutes, take up breads, cut each in half-inch-square pieces, finely slice twelve canned mushrooms, one small truffle, cut an ounce cooked lean ham in squares, and place these four articles on a plate until required. Mix in a saucepan one and a half tablespoons melted butter with two tablespoons flour, strain the sweetbread broth into this pan, mix well until it comes to a boil, then reduce to a third of the quantity, frequently mixing meanwhile. Add four articles on plate to sauce with two tablespoons sherry and a half gill cream, mix well, cook for ten minutes, remove to a table. Lightly butter a quart pudding mould, cut two slices truffles in alphabetic letters, one "N," the other "Y", and arrange letters "N. Y." at bottom of mould. Carefully line bottom and sides with three-quarters of force in bowl, pour bread preparation into mould, cover with balance of force, neatly smooth surface, cover with a sheet buttered paper, place mould in a saucepan, pour hot water up to half the height of the mould, then set in oven for forty-five minutes. Remove, lift up paper, unmould on a large hot dish, pour a cream sauce around and serve.
An elaborate hot forcemeat mould in the Delmonico manner, and one of the few dishes in the book that genuinely rewards reading the whole method twice before starting. Nothing here is dangerous, but almost everything depends on temperature control.
- The hinge: keep the forcemeat coldThe chicken-and-veal paste will break and weep fat if it warms while the cream goes in. Chill the bowl, the mortar or processor bowl, and the cream, add the cream in a thin stream, and return the mixture to the refrigerator the moment it is smooth.
- Gills and saltspoonsA gill is half a cup, so one and a half gills of cream is 3/4 cup and half a gill is 1/4 cup. A saltspoon is a scant 1/4 teaspoon.
- "Force" and "bread panade"Force is forcemeat — the pounded chicken and veal mixture that lines the mould. Panade is crumb of bread soaked in milk or broth and squeezed nearly dry; the two ounces most likely means two ounces of the made panade rather than of dry bread, though the recipe does not say.
- Oven temperatureThe recipe gives no temperature. For a covered mould in a water bath, a moderate oven of about 325F is a reasonable modern setting. Cook until the forcemeat feels firm and the centre reaches 165F, the safe figure for a paste of raw poultry and veal; the stated forty-five minutes suits a quart mould, longer if yours is deeper than wide.
- Sweetbreads"Heart sweetbreads" are the rounder, plumper gland, prized over the elongated throat sweetbread. Order them from a butcher, soak several hours in cold water with a change or two, then blanch and press under a weight before braising. Six of them is generous — three or four large ones will do.
- Mirepoix and white brothThe mirepoix is diced carrot, onion and celery with a bay leaf, laid as a bed under the sweetbreads. White broth is a light veal or chicken stock; since the braising liquid is later reduced to a third — and a teaspoon of salt has already gone on the sweetbreads — use unsalted or very lightly salted stock or the sauce will be far too salty.
- Mixed spiceGround mixed spice at this date may mean either the French quatre épices — pepper, nutmeg, clove and ginger — or the sweeter English blend of cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice and clove. A pinch of allspice plus a little clove is a reasonable stand-in.
- Canned mushrooms and truffleSubstitute small button mushrooms, sliced and sautéed dry in butter until they stop giving off water. The truffle is decorative as much as anything; if you skip the initials, a few blanched leek greens or dark mushroom slices give the same graphic effect at the bottom of the mould.
- The cream sauce, and yieldNo recipe is given for the finishing sauce; a light white sauce or velouté enriched with cream is the likeliest reading. A quart mould serves six to eight as a course. Rest it a few minutes before unmoulding so the sides do not slump.
A timbale takes its name from the drum-shaped mould it is baked in, and the technique — a fine veal or poultry forcemeat lining a buttered mould, filled with a ragout and cooked in a water bath — was a staple of the French professional repertoire that American hotel kitchens inherited wholesale. What makes this version American is the garnish: truffle cut into the letters N and Y and set at the bottom so that the initials appear on top when the timbale is turned out, the dish christened "New-Yorkaise" accordingly. Alexander Filippini, whose name is on The International Cook Book (1906), spent much of his career at Delmonico's, and dishes styled after cities, patrons and stage personalities were the house habit of that world. Sweetbreads themselves were then a luxury organ meat that any competent restaurant cook handled weekly; their near-disappearance from home kitchens says more about changing butchery and squeamishness than about the ingredient.