21. Sweetbreads—Another Way
Soak for half an hour in cold water with a pinch of salt, then drop them into boiling water. At the end of twenty minutes take out and, after removing the outer skin, cut into slices. Have ready some fresh butter in an enamelled frying pan. Fry the sliced sweetbreads lightly for a quarter of an hour. Lay on a dish and squeeze a little lemon juice on each slice allowing a quarter of a lemon for the whole of the sweetbread.
22. Steak and Kidney Pudding
Take one and a half pounds of thick steak and cut into pieces of about an inch. Have an ox kidney cut into small pieces and a basin well buttered. With half a pound of beef suet, chopped fine, and two and a half to three breakfast-cups of self-raising flour, make a stiff paste, mixing with tepid water. Line the basin with the paste. Put the steak and kidney in, add about half a teaspoonful of salt, sprinkle a little dry flour over the meat, put the crust on and cover the basin with a wet cloth which should be tied securely with string. Boil for three and a half hours. At the end of that time take the cloth off and serve in the basin (stood in a dish) with a fluted paper collar round it. Make a small hole in the top of the pudding and pour in about half a teacupful of hot gravy made from any small pieces of meat left over before serving.
23. Calf’s Kidney on Toast
Skin and split in two a calf’s kidney. Melt in a frying pan about an ounce of fresh butter, and place the kidney in this with one very thin slice of Spanish onion for each half of kidney—one rasher of bacon, chopped very fine, to be put in the pan also. Cook as for sheep’s kidneys, but without the red pepper. Prepare some hot toast, lay upon it the slice of onion, which should be kept whole if possible, and then the kidney. Dust a little portion of the bacon over it with a little pepper and salt. Turn the butter out of the pan, put a little meat juice from under the dripping (about an egg-cupful) and half a tablespoonful of white wine, the juice of a quarter of a lemon (half a teaspoonful of vinegar will serve if the lemon is not available), thicken with a little flour and water (first mixed smooth), and pour through a gravy strainer over the kidney. Serve very hot. The best way to prepare the toast is as follows:—
Take as many pieces of dry bread as required and fry quickly in a little good dripping to a crisp brown. It should then remain quite crisp even when the gravy is turned over it.
24. Bacon Pudding
About half a pound of beef suet chopped very fine, two and a half breakfast-cupfuls of self-raising flour and a pinch of salt, must be mixed with tepid water into a nice elastic paste. Cut half a pound of bacon (fat and lean together) into narrow long strips, slice thinly one fair-sized Spanish onion into rings, and chop about eight leaves of sage very fine. Roll the paste in small pieces to form layers in the basin which must be greased by putting in a good-sized piece of butter and allowing it to stand on the top of the stove until the butter has melted and every part of the basin has had the hot butter run over it. This will prevent the pudding adhering to the basin. Put one layer of paste in the basin, then a layer of bacon and onion and just a little sage sprinkled over the top, then another layer of paste, and so on till all the bacon and onion are used up. Then put on the top layer of paste which must quite fill the basin, and tie the pudding securely in a freshly wetted pudding cloth. Care must be taken that the cloth is not drawn too tight over the pudding and that the basin is full or the water will get in and spoil the dish. The pudding must be immersed in boiling water and boiled for three hours. At the end of that time turn it out on a hot dish and serve with a little clear melted butter in a sauce boat.