To Cook Liver (No. 2).
Fry in a sauté pan some thin slices of breakfast bacon, and when done put them on a hot dish; fry then thin slices of liver in the same fat, which have previously been thrown into boiling water for only a moment, and then been sprinkled with flour. When well done on both sides, serve them and the bacon on the same dish, and garnish them with slices of lemon.
Calf’s Brains.
Before cooking, remove the fibrous membranes around them. Throw them into a pint of cold water, in which are mixed half a tea-spoonful of salt and one tea-spoonful of vinegar; boil them three minutes, then plunge them into cold water. When cold and about to be served, cut them into scollops; and when seasoned with pepper and salt, egged, and bread-crumbed, sauté them in a little hot butter. Serve with tomato-sauce. Or they may be served with spighetti (a small macaroni) cooked with tomato-sauce ([see page 210]), and placed around them, when they are called brains à la Milanaise.
SWEET-BREADS.
Veal sweet-breads are best. They spoil very soon. The moment they come from market, they should be put into cold water, to soak for about an hour; lard them, or rather draw a lardoon of pork through the centre of each sweet-bread, and put them into salted boiling water, or, better, stock, and let them boil about twenty minutes, or until they are thoroughly done; throw them then into cold water for only a few moments. They will now be firm and white. Remove carefully the skin and little pipes, and put them in the coolest place until ready to cook again. The simplest way to cook them is the best one, as follows:
Fried Sweet-breads.
Parboil them as just explained. Just before serving, cut them in even-sized pieces, sprinkle over pepper and salt, egg and bread-crumb them, and fry them in hot lard. They are often immersed in boiling lard, yet oftener fried in the sauté pan. If sautéd, when done put them on a hot dish, turn out part of the lard from the sauté pan, leaving about half a tea-spoonful; pour in a cupful of milk thickened with a little flour; let it cook, stirring it constantly, and season it with pepper and salt; strain, and pour over the sweet-breads. With green pease, serve without sauce. This is the usual combination at dinner or breakfast companies, the pease in the centre of the dish, and the sweet-breads around (see cut above). Or they are often served whole with cauliflower or asparagus heads, when the cream-sauce is poured over both; or they are also nice piled in the centre of a dish, with macaroni (cooked with cheese) placed around them like a nest, and browned a little with a salamander (see cut on next page), or with a tomato-sauce in the centre of the dish, and the sweet-breads around, or with stuffed tomatoes alternating with the sweet-breads on the dish, or with mushrooms in the centre, or served on a dish made of boiled rice, called a rice casserole ([see page 205]), or in little rice molds called cassolettes. To make the latter, boil the rice well, then work it to a smooth paste with a spoon; fill some little buttered patty-pans with the rice, and when it is quite cold take it out, brush the cassolettes with butter on the outside, and color them a little in a hot oven; scoop out the inside, leaving the rice crust a quarter of an inch thick. Fill the cassolettes with the sweet-breads cut into pieces, and pour over each a spoonful of cream dressing; or they may be sautéd as described, and served with a maître-d’hôtel sauce poured over.