Sweetbread

“ Lay the sweetbreads around them, and pour a cream sauce around the edge of the dish. Garnish with parsley. One pint of cream sauce is sufficient for eight or ten sweetbreads.
Sweetbread Sauté.
One sweetbread, after being boiled, split and cut in four pieces. Season with salt and pepper. Put in a small frying-pan one small table-spoonful of butter and the same quantity of flour. When hot, put in the sweetbreads; turn constantly until a light brown. They will fry in about eight minutes. Serve with cream sauce or tomato sauce. ”

“ Ragoût of Veal Reheat two cups cold roast veal, cut in cubes, in one and one-half cups Brown Sauce seasoned with one teaspoon Worcestershire Sauce, few drops of onion juice, and a few grains of cayenne.
232 CHAPTER XV
SWEETBREADS A sweetbread is the thymus gland of lamb or calf, but in cookery, veal sweetbreads only are considered. It is prenatally developed, of unknown function, and as soon as calf is taken from liquid food it gradually disappears. Pancreas, stomach sweetbread, is sold in some sections of the country, but in our markets this custom is not practised. ”

“ Hancock, Colonel Fanshawe's widowed sister, sometimes laments, "choice." Butcher, baker, and greengrocer supply the less "choice" comforts of life, but if you want a sweetbread in a hurry, or a bundle of early asparagus, it is idle to expect anything of the sort. ”

“ Meat.—Veal and lamb are in full season, and sweetbreads are in great request. As the supply is always limited, butchers not seldom try to pass off bullock’s sweetbread—i.e. the pancreatic gland—on their customers. True sweetbread is a gland in the neck of the young animal only. This should not be tolerated, as bullock’s sweetbread is coarse-flavoured and hard, and needs long and careful washing and cooking before it comes to table. It can, however, be made very palatable with care, and is occasionally worth buying as a change, under its rightful name, and at a legitimate price. ”

“ Cook the sweetbreads as directed in first recipe; when cold, pick them apart, rejecting the membrane. Rub the butter and flour together, add the milk, stir until boiling, and add this slowly to the mashed yolks of the eggs. Work and stir until you have a perfectly smooth paste. Press it through a fine sieve, add the salt, pepper, mushrooms and sweetbreads. Stand over hot water for twenty minutes, until thoroughly hot. Add, if you use it, four tablespoonfuls of sherry, and serve. ”

“ Sweetbread and Cucumber Salad II Parboil a sweetbread, adding to water a bit of bay leaf, a slice of onion, and a blade of mace. Cool, and cut in small cubes; there should be three-fourths cup. Add an equal quantity of cucumber cubes. Beat one-half cup thick cream until stiff; add one-fourth tablespoon granulated gelatine soaked in one-half tablespoon cold water and dissolved in one and one-half tablespoons boiling water, then add one and one-half tablespoons vinegar. Add sweetbread and cucumber, mould, and chill. Arrange on lettuce leaves, and serve with French Dressing. ”

“ Put in the sweetbreads, and fry without other fat than that of the pork lardoons which should project half an inch on each side of the sweetbreads. Cook steadily, turning the sweetbreads frequently, until they are of a nice brown. Cut into one with a small sharp knife, to assure yourself that it is done. Remove to a hot, well-buttered dish, and garnish with sprigs of parsley, which have been crisped, but not burned, in a little boiling butter. ”

“ Add one cupful of stock. Boil one minute, and stir in one pint of cooked veal, cut rather fine. Season with salt, pepper, and a little lemon juice. When hot, fill the crusts. Any kind of cold meat can be served in this manner.
Sweetbreads.
Sweetbreads are found in calves and lambs. The demand for calves' sweetbreads has grown wonderfully within the past ten years. In all our large cities they sell at all times of the year for a high price, but in winter and early spring they cost more than twice as much as they do late in the spring and during the summer. ”

“ In whatever form the sweetbreads may be subsequently dressed, they must be first blanched, to render them white and firm. One hour's soaking, at least, in cold water, is necessary to free them from blood, and they may with advantage be allowed to remain longer. They should then be put into a stewpan, covered with cold water, and brought slowly to the boil, and after 2 or 3 minutes' gentle cooking, may be either transferred to a basin of cold water and allowed to remain in it until cold, or well washed in cold water and pressed between 2 dishes until cold. ”

“ I can't use sweetbreads tonight, Heinie."
"Throw 'em away then. A present, ain't they? Nobody in town eats 'em but you."
Kate unfortunately suggested braizing the sweetbreads for Sawdy and Lefever.
"What?" exclaimed Belle. "Men don't eat sweetbreads, don't you know that? ”

“ Carefully choose a pair of fresh sweetbreads, trim off their fat, and follow the above directions for parboiling. Cut them in small pieces, and simmer twenty minutes in only enough water to make a steam. Then add a cup of rich milk, rub smooth a tablespoon of flour and a tablespoon of butter; moisten with some of the milk from the saucepan, add a pinch of salt; stir all together over a moderate fire until the flour thickens. ”

“ Add half a sliced carrot, half a sliced onion, and a bouquet (No. 254) . Sprinkle over them a pinch of salt, and cover them with a buttered paper. Reduce to a golden color, and moisten with half a pint of strong white broth (No. 99) . Cook it in the oven for forty minutes, basting occasionally with the gravy, lifting the buttered paper, and replacing it each time in the same position. The sweetbreads will now be ready to serve with any kind of sauce or garnishing desired. Always place the sauce or garnishing on a hot serving-dish, and lay the sweetbreads over it, then send to the table. ”

“ When the sweetbreads have lain in this ten minutes, wipe them very dry, and with a sharp knife split each in half, lengthwise. Broil over a clear, hot fire, turning every minute as they begin to drip. Have ready upon a deep plate some melted butter, well salted and peppered, mixed with catsup or pungent sauce. ”

“ Blanch, lard, and braise three sweetbreads as before; have ready a ragout à la financière (No. 50) , which pour in the dish, dress your sweetbreads over, glaze lightly and serve.
No. 675. Ris de Veau piqué à la purée d’asperges. ”

“ Add grated bread, and season with a very little salt and pepper; some powdered mace and nutmeg; and some grated lemon-rind. Moisten the whole with cream, and make them up into small cones or sugar-loaves; forming and smoothing them nicely. Have ready some beaten egg, mixed with grated bread-crumbs. Dip into it each croquette, and fry them slowly in fresh butter. Serve them hot; standing up on the dish, and with a sprig of parsley in the top of each.
Sweetbreads should never be used unless perfectly fresh. They spoil very rapidly. ”

“ What gratitude we have in spring to the Sweetbrier! How early in the year, from sprouting branch and curling leaf, it begins to give forth its pure odor! Gracious and lavish plant, beloved in scent by every one, you have no rival in the spring garden with its pale perfumes. The Sweetbrier and Shakespeare's Musk Rose (Rosa moschata) are said to be the only Roses that at evening pour forth their perfume ”

“ A common Sweetbriar will also push up among the branches of some dark evergreen, Yew or Holly, and throw out aloft its scented branches and rosy bloom, and look its very best.
[040] But some of these same free Roses are best of all if left in a clear space to grow exactly as they will without any kind of support or training. So placed, they grow into large rounded groups. Every year, just after the young laterals on the last year's branches have flowered, they throw out vigorous young rods that arch over as they complete their growth, and will be the flower-bearers of the year to come. ”

“ Immovable, and in silence, Job is concealed behind a Syringa hedge or in a Lilac ambush, and as you stroll peacefully and unwittingly down the paths, sniffing the honeyed sweetness of the dense edging of Sweet Alyssum, all is as balmy as the blossoms. But stoop for an instant, to gather some leaves of Sweet Basil or Sweet Brier, or to collect a dozen seed-pods of that specially delicate Sweet Pea, and lo! [Pg 397] the enemy is upon you, like a fierce whirlwind. ”

“ If we have acres of sweetpeas we'll all have to help Roger pick."
"I'm willing to," said Ethel Blue. "I'm like Roger, I think they're darling; just like butterflies or something with wings."
"We'll have to cast our professional eyes into the garden and decide on the best place for the sweetpeas," said Roger. "They have to be planted early, you know. If we plant them just anywhere they'll be sure to be in the way of something that grows shorter so it will be hidden."
"Or grows taller and is a color that fights with them." ”

“ Treat them just as you do those grown in a hedge, but when you put in your tall stakes make them all slant a little towards the centre, so that they meet at the top. The Hazel branches that you get easily in many neighbourhoods are best for Sweet-peas. Where these are scarce, you must use what you can find. The wire hurdles recommended for garden Peas where stakes are scarce would answer, but they are expensive and ugly. If your garden is not airy and sunny, it is a waste of time and money to try Sweet-peas. They are impatient of shade, of starved soil, or of a crowded garden. ”

“ Now it is usual to grow each colour by itself, and every year we seem to get better colours and bigger flowers. The fanciers of the ‘Sweet-pea world’ have taken Sweet-peas in hand, and by careful cultivation and selection have given us many new and beautiful varieties. At first novelties are dear, because the stock of seed is small, but for a few pence you can have a hedge that would have rejoiced Keats; and if you are a wise child, you will certainly grow those that have become plentiful. ”

“ For a dividing line between the flower and kitchen gardens, or for some spot where too much formality is not required, the Common Sweetbriar makes an excellent hedge, although it requires much attention for the first few years. If planted without support, such as a wooden railing, it should be kept tied or pegged down almost to the ground for the first two or three years, using practically every growth that is made by the plants. By this means a good foundation is laid for the hedge, which will, when made, merely require an annual trimming. We plant Sweetbriars everywhere. ”

“ Later on, when it is a strong plant, and supported by a twig, you can put back the rest of the soil. Sweet-peas are very thirsty plants, and when the long dry days come they like to have their roots deep down in the moist earth.
Their two great enemies are slugs and sparrows. In or near a town where sparrows swarm, you cannot grow Sweet-peas at all unless you protect the young shoots when they first show above the ground—about three weeks, that is, after the seed is sown. Later, when the leaves expand, the birds leave the plants alone. ”

“ The berry bushes crowd together in thick-set patches, waist-high, interspersed with big "high-bush" shrubs in clumps or alone, low, hoary juniper, and great, dark masses of richly glossy, richly fragrant bay. The pointed cedars stand about like sentinels, stiff enough save where their sensitive tops lean delicately away from the wind. In the scant herbage between is goldenrod, the earliest and the latest alike at home here, and red lilies and asters, and down close to the ground, if you care to stoop for them, trailing vines of dewberries with their fruit, the sweetest of all the blackberries. ”

“ But though so wild and unconventional when full-grown, the sugar pine is a remarkably regular tree in youth, a strict follower of coniferous fashions, slim, erect, tapering, symmetrical, every branch in place. At the age of fifty or sixty years this shy, fashionable form begins to give way. Special branches are thrust out away from the general outlines of the trees and bent down with cones. Henceforth it becomes more and more original and independent in style, pushes boldly aloft into the winds and sunshine, growing ever more stately and beautiful, a joy and inspiration to every beholder. ”

“ Blackberries still very plenty, and sweet; they have not brought any to the village lately, people seem tired of them. Found also a few red raspberries, whortleberries, and the acid rose-berry. This is a land of berries; a large portion of our trees and plants yield their seed in this form. Among such are the several wild cherries, and plums, the amelanchiers and dog-woods, the mountain ash, the sumachs, and the thorns; all the large bramble tribe, with their pleasant fruits, roses, raspberries, the blackberry, and the gooseberry ”

“ The snow under which they he for months ripens them, though they are perhaps more spicy in the autumn. Their form when perfect is remarkable for a fruit; it has five sharp drooping points at the apex, and within these lies, as it were, a second smaller rose-colored berry, containing the tiny seed; they are seldom found in this mature state until a year old, and it is in June that the berries break open and drop the seed. The birds are very fond of this berry, and some eat the spicy little seeds while they reject the fleshy part. ”

“ In every cranny of the loose stone walls abound the most delicate ferns. Every bank is bright with the wood-strawberry; the gooseberry grows in the hedge; the tall wild cherry, so frequent in Auvergne, drops its dark sweet fruit in your lap as you sit under the trees; but you must climb the woods to find the thick growing raspberry-canes, rose-red with fruit, and the myrtle-like bilberry close set with round blue berries. In autumn, on every moor and height, the heather comes out among the second blossom of the broom. ”