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Sweetbread Croquettes
(Paris.) Parboil, cool, and chop 4 small or 3 large sweetbreads. Cook with 1 ounce of butter, salt, pepper, a tablespoonful of chopped onion, 1/2 pint of cooked mushrooms, 1 cup of white stock, and the yolks of 2 eggs. Add juice of a lemon, parsley, and a little nutmeg. Mix all well and roll into balls. Dip into eggs and bread-crumbs and fry in hot fat.
The recipe assumes you already know how croquette mixture behaves; as written it omits both the thickening and the chilling that make the balls hold together. Read the first two points before starting.
- The hinge: the mixture must be stiff and coldCook the stock, yolks and butter down to a paste that holds a spoon upright, then spread it on a plate and refrigerate at least two hours, preferably overnight. Warm or loose mixture will slump in the crumbs and burst in the fat.
- Add a binderA cup of stock and two yolks will not bind chopped sweetbreads on their own. Work in about 2 tablespoons of flour cooked in the butter first, or a few tablespoons of dry breadcrumbs, to give a thick sauce before the sweetbreads go in.
- Preparing the sweetbreadsSoak in several changes of cold water for an hour or two to draw the blood, then simmer 10-15 minutes, plunge into ice water, and peel away the membrane and any gristle. Press between two plates with a weight until cold; they chop much more cleanly.
- Buying themVeal sweetbreads are sold as throat bread and heart (or belly) bread: the throat bread is the thymus, the heart bread the pancreas, which is rounder and generally preferred for this. You may need to order them ahead. Four small ones is roughly 1 1/2 to 2 lb untrimmed.
- Units1 ounce butter is 2 tablespoons. Half a pint of cooked mushrooms is about a cup, chopped small and cooked down dry; expect to start with something closer to a pound of raw mushrooms to end up with that much.
- White stockAn unbrowned veal or chicken stock. Unsalted commercial chicken stock, reduced by half, is the practical substitute; season at the end, since reduction concentrates the salt.
- Frying375F in deep fat, in small batches, two to three minutes to a deep gold. The interior is already cooked, so you are only crisping the crust. Drain on a rack, not paper.
- YieldAbout 14 to 18 walnut-sized croquettes, serving six as an entree course with a lemon wedge or a plain veloute.
Croquettes of this kind were one way a French kitchen turned an expensive, perishable offal into a dish that could be prepared ahead and served in portions: sweetbreads spoil within a day or two of slaughter, and binding them in a thick sauce bought time. The parenthetical "(Paris.)" places the recipe, and sweetbreads under glass or in croquettes were fixtures of the Parisian restaurant repertoire of the period, from which American hotel menus borrowed heavily. Nutmeg with veal and mushrooms is a very old pairing in French cookery, and the lemon juice here seasons the dish.