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Sweetbreads in Jelly
Parboil a pair of sweetbreads. Take up and press between plates until firm and cold. Cut them in small cutlets. Have some aspic jelly melted slightly; dip each cutlet in it. Chop some of the jelly into pieces, arrange in a circle, lay the cutlets on this, fill the center with chopped celery, pour mayonnaise around the dish and garnish with little squares of aspic. Serve very cold.
A cold entree from the era when aspic was the mark of a well-run kitchen. Nothing here is difficult, but the recipe assumes you already know how to handle sweetbreads and how to make aspic, since both appear elsewhere in books of this type.
- Cook them through, not just "parboil"Because the cutlets are served cold with no further cooking, the initial simmer has to do all the work. Soak the sweetbreads in several changes of cold water for an hour or two, peel away membrane and tubes, then simmer in salted, acidulated water until firm and opaque to the center — 20 to 25 minutes for a large pair, to an internal temperature of 160F. A brief dip in boiling water, which is what "parboil" sometimes meant, leaves the interior raw.
- A pair of sweetbreadsOne "pair" is the two lobes from a single calf: the round heart sweetbread and the elongated throat sweetbread, roughly 1 to 1 1/2 lb together. The recipe does not say which animal; veal is the likeliest intention for a dish of this kind, and lamb sweetbreads are smaller and need less time. Order them ahead from a butcher and use them within a day.
- PressingWeighting the cooked sweetbreads between two plates in the refrigerator for several hours compacts them so they slice into neat cutlets instead of crumbling. A can or two of tomatoes on the top plate is enough weight.
- Aspic jellyPeriod aspic was clarified veal or chicken stock set with its own gelatin or with sheet gelatin. Modern equivalent: 2 cups strong, well-seasoned stock with a scant tablespoon of powdered gelatin (an envelope is about 2 1/4 teaspoons, so use one envelope plus a little more) to set firm enough to chop. "Melted slightly" means barely liquid and beginning to thicken — if it is hot it will slide off the cutlets rather than coat them.
- Chopped aspicSet the remaining jelly in a shallow pan so it is about 1/2 inch thick, then chop it cold with a wet knife. Cold tools and a cold platter matter more than technique; chopped aspic slumps within minutes at room temperature.
- MayonnaiseThe original assumes hand-made mayonnaise, thick enough to hold a border around the dish. Commercial mayonnaise thinned with a spoonful of lemon juice and a little cream behaves much the same.
- Yield and servingA pair of sweetbreads makes four modest first courses or a light lunch for two. Assemble no more than half an hour before serving and keep the plate refrigerated until it goes to the table.
Sweetbreads — the thymus and pancreas of a calf — were a luxury item in American households around 1900, expensive enough to be worth the trouble of aspic work and delicate enough that they were rarely handled like ordinary offal. The dish sits within the broader repertoire of cold entrees borrowed from French service: something cooked, chilled, glazed with savory jelly, and presented as a set piece on a platter. Aspic itself was a household staple in the period, since long-simmered veal knuckle and calves' feet gave cooks a gelatin-rich stock as a by-product of everyday stockmaking; commercial powdered gelatin, available from the 1890s onward, is what made recipes like this one practical for cooks without a stockpot going all day. Sweetbreads gradually disappeared from American home cooking over the twentieth century, and the elaborate molded and chopped aspic garnish went with them.