Cut a loaf of stale bread in slices an inch thick. With the patty cutter, press out as many pieces as you wish patties, and with a smaller cutter, press half through each piece. Place this second cutter as near the centre as possible when using. Put the pieces in the frying basket and plunge into boiling fat for half a minute. Take out and drain, and with a knife, remove the centre crusts and take out the soft bread; then fill, and put on the centre pieces.
Filling for crusts: Put two table-spoonfuls of butter in the frying-pan, and when hot, add one of flour. Stir until smooth and brown. 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. The throat and heart sweetbreads are often sold as one, but in winter, when they bring a very high price, the former is sold for the same price as the latter. The throat sweetbread is found immediately below the throat. It has an elongated form, is not so firm and fat, and has not the fine flavor of the heart sweetbread. The heart sweetbread is attached to the last rib, and lies near the heart. The form is somewhat rounded, and it is smooth and firm.
To Clean Sweetbreads.
Carefully pull off all the tough and fibrous skin. Place them in a dish of cold water for ten minutes or more, and they are then ready to be boiled. They must always be boiled twenty minutes, no matter what the mode of cooking is to be.
Sweetbreads Larded and Baked.
When the sweetbreads have been cleaned, draw through each one four very thin pieces of pork (about the size of a match). Drop them into cold water for five or ten minutes, then into hot water, and boil twenty minutes. Take out, spread with butter, dredge with salt, pepper and flour, and bake twenty minutes in a quick oven. Serve with green peas, well drained, seasoned with salt and butter, and heaped in the centre of the dish. 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.