Wash the sweetbreads, put them in a saucepan, cover with boiling water, add two tablespoonfuls of vinegar and a sliced onion. Cook gently for three-quarters of an hour. Drain, put them in a baking pan, brush them with butter, add a few tablespoonfuls of glaze or stock, put over three or four slices of bacon, and cook in the oven a half hour, basting three or four times. Rub the butter and flour together, add the milk, stir until boiling, add two tablespoonfuls of the soaked gelatin, a half teaspoonful of salt and a little white pepper. Take from the fire and add hastily the beaten yolks of the eggs. Cover the bottom of a cold baking pan with muffin rings, put one sweetbread into each muffin ring. When the sauce is a little cool, cover the sweetbreads thoroughly, filling the rings quite full. Stand these away over night in a cold place.
Dissolve the remaining gelatin in the hot bouillon, season, add the lemon juice, and stand it aside over night. At serving time, remove the contents from the rings and place them in paper cases of the same size. Turn the clear aspic out on to a towel and cut it into pretty shapes. Decorate the top of the cases with this aspic, placing a sprig of green in the centre. Drain and press the cold peas through a sieve, and season them with salt and pepper; put this pulp in a pastry bag with a star tube, and decorate the top of each mold. Serve at once with mayonnaise passed in a boat.
Another way is to fill the bottom of the paper cases with finely chopped celery, mixed with mayonnaise, and put the sweetbreads on top, omitting the peas. If made well, these are exceedingly handsome. One "ring" will be served to each person.
SWEETBREADS à la NEWBURG
2 pairs of calves' sweetbreads
1 can of mushrooms
4 hard boiled yolks of eggs
1/2 pint of milk
2 level tablespoonfuls of butter
1 tablespoonful of flour
1/2 teaspoonful of salt
1 saltspoonful of white pepper
1/2 saltspoonful of grated nutmeg
A dash of cayenne
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.
This will serve ten persons.