Italian Food

Italian Sweetbread Dishes

Animelle alla Parmegiana (Sweetbread)

Ingredients: Sweetbread, bread crumbs, Parmesan, butter.

Blanch as many sweetbreads as you require, and then roll them in bread crumbs mixed with grated Parmesan, salt, and pepper; wrap them up in buttered grease-proof paper and grill them. When they are cooked, take off the paper, and serve with a good sauce in a sauce-boat.

Animelle in Cartoccio (Sweetbread)

Ingredients: Sweetbread, butter, herbs, salt, pepper, bread crumbs, Parmesan, lemons, gravy, tomatoes.

Blanch a pound of sweetbread cuttings, mix it with two ounces of melted butter, chopped herbs, salt, and pepper, and put it into paper souffle cases. Then strew over each some bread crumbs mixed with grated Parmesan, put the cases in the oven, and when they are browned serve either with good gravy and lemon juice or with tomato sauce.

Animelle all'Italiana (Sweetbread)

Ingredients: Sweetbread, butter, onions, salt, herbs, eggs, glaze, Risotto, truffles, quenelles of fowl, Espagnole sauce, white sauce.

Blanch as many sweetbreads as you require, cut them into quarters and saute them in butter with a small onion cut up, salt, and a bunch of herbs. Then pour over them two cups of white sauce and cook gently for twenty minutes; take out the sweetbreads and put them in a stewpan. Reduce the sauce, and add to it a mixture made of the yolks of four eggs, one and a half ounce of butter and a teaspoonful of glaze; pass it through a sieve, pour it over the sweetbreads, and keep them warm in a bain-marie. Have ready a good Risotto all'Italiana, and put it into a border mould (but first decorate the inside of the mould with slices of truffle), put it in a moderate oven, and when it is warm turn it out on a dish. Place the sweetbreads on the risotto and fill in the centre with quenelles of fowl and Espagnole sauce.

Animelle Lardellate (Sweetbread)

Ingredients: Sweetbreads, larding, bacon, stock, a macedoine of vegetables.

Blanch two sweetbreads, lard them, and cook them very slowly in good stock. Skim the stock and reduce it to a glaze to cover the sweetbreads. Then cut them into three or four pieces and arrange them round a dish, but see that the larding is well glazed over. In the centre of the dish place a piece of bread in the shape of a cup and fill this with a macedoine of vegetables.

Frittura di Bottoni e di Animelle (Sweetbread and Mushrooms)

Ingredients: Sweetbread, fresh button mushrooms, flour, bread crumbs, salt, pepper, parsley, butter, lemons.

Peel some button mushrooms and cut them in halves. Boil a sweetbread, and cut it into pieces about the same size as the mushrooms, flour, egg, and bread crumb them, and fry in butter; then serve with a garnish of fried parsley. Hand cut lemons with this dish.

Fritto Misto alla Villeroy

Ingredients: Cocks' combs, calf's brains, sweetbread, stock, truffles, mushrooms, Villeroy, eggs, bread crumbs.

Cook some big cocks' combs, bits of calf s brains, and sweetbread in good stock, then drain them and marinate them slightly in lemon juice and herbs. Prepare a Villeroy (No. 18), and add to it cuttings of sweetbread, brains, truffles, mushrooms, &c. When it is cold, mask the cocks' combs and other ingredients with it, egg and bread-crumb them, and fry them a golden brown.

Fritto Misto alla Piemontese

Ingredients: Sweetbread, calf s brains, ox palate, flour, eggs, Chablis, salt, herbs butter.

Make a thin paste with a tablespoonful of flour, the yolks of two eggs, two Spoonsful of Chablis, and a little salt. Mix this up well, and if it is too thick add a little water. Beat up the whites of the two eggs into a snow. In the meantime blanch a sweetbread, half a calf's brain, and a few bits of cooked ox palate; boil them all up with a bunch of herbs; cut them into pieces about the size of a walnut, and dip them into the paste so that each piece is well covered, then dip them into the beaten-up whites of egg, and fry them very quickly in butter. This fry is generally served with a garnish of French beans, which should not be cut up, but half boiled, then dried, floured over and fried together with the other ingredients. The ox palates should be boiled for at least six hours before you use them in this dish.