CookEat Recipe
Sweetbreads en Estouffade
Whole larded calf heart sweetbreads braised with small scooped root vegetables, white wine and a removable herb bouquet, served in their covered cocotte.
Method
Steps
Step 1
Have the vegetables, bouquet and larding strips ready before the sweetbreads finish blanching, so that their cooking can continue immediately. Preheat a conventional oven to 165°C. Use a very small Parisian potato scoop to take as many pieces as possible from two medium peeled carrots, two peeled turnips and two peeled potatoes. Very finely chop one white onion. Tie one branch each of parsley and chervil, half a small peeled garlic clove, one bay leaf and one whole clove into a removable bouquet.
Step 2
Cut twenty-four julienne-shaped strips in total from a small piece of fresh unsalted, unsmoked raw pork backfat. With a small larding needle, lard the tops of six medium calf heart sweetbreads, freshly blanched and drained for immediate further cooking. Lightly butter a hob-and-oven-safe earthenware cocotte and lay the sweetbreads beside one another.
Step 3
Arrange all the prepared vegetable scoops and finely chopped onion around the sweetbreads and put the bouquet in the centre. Season all around with one teaspoon of salt and half a teaspoon of white pepper. Divide half an ounce of butter into very small bits and distribute evenly over the sweetbreads and vegetables.
Step 4
Cover the cocotte and cook gently on the hob for five minutes, then transfer it, still covered, to the preheated oven.
Step 5
Cook covered for thirty minutes as an initial guide, keeping the cooking gentle and checking as necessary that the bottom is not catching. Check the sweetbreads and vegetable scoops for tenderness and continue cooking as necessary.
Step 6
Bring the cocotte to the oven door. Carefully drain all the fat from the bottom while retaining the sweetbreads, vegetables and cooking juices. Pour in one gill of white wine, re-cover and return to the oven for ten minutes as a further guide.
Step 7
Continue covered cooking as necessary until the vegetable scoops and sweetbreads are tender and the centre of every larded sweetbread, including the pork-containing parts, has reached at least 71°C on a clean food thermometer. Remove the bouquet and sprinkle half a teaspoon of chopped chives over the dish.
Step 8
Replace the lid and send the same covered cocotte straight to the table for immediate service.
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