Put a sweetbread in a bowl and cover it with cold water, and let it steep for an hour or two. Drain the sweetbread, put it into a saucepan with sufficient cold water to cover, and stand it over the fire. When the water boils move the saucepan a little off the fire so that the sweetbread may cook slowly for about thirty minutes. At the end of that time plunge the sweetbread into a basin of cold water, then drain it, trim off the fat, and cut it into small pieces. Put one-third of a tablespoonful of arrowroot into a basin, and mix it smoothly with one breakfast cupful of milk; turn it into the saucepan, stir over the fire until it boils, then put in the sweetbread, and season to taste with pepper and salt, and simmer it gently at the edge of the fire for ten minutes. At the end of that time turn the sweetbread and sauce onto a hot dish, garnish with croutons of fried bread that have been fried brown in butter, or sippets of toast, and serve.

Larded Sweetbreads

Partially boil the sweetbreads, then drain and leave them until cold. Lard the sweetbreads with strips of bacon and lemon peel, putting the bacon in the center and the peel down the sides. Lay them in a stewpan with brown gravy to a little more than half their height, and let them simmer gently for an hour. Arrange the sweetbreads on a hot dish, thicken the gravy with a little flour, season it to the taste with lemon juice and catsup, and pour it over the sweetbreads. They should be served while very hot.

Sweetbreads, Montebello

Prepare some sweetbreads the same as sweetbreads Waldorf; take them from under the weight and trim them into ovals; cover them all with a preparation made of other sweetbreads minced into very small dice with mushrooms of the same size mingled with cream sauce, salt and pepper. Form this over the ovals in a dome-shape and cover with chicken forcemeat, containing very finely shredded red beef tongue. Dress the ovals on a dish covered with Montebello sauce, made by mixing tomato and Bearnaise sauce together.

Sweetbreads, Parisian Style

Wash four sweetbreads and boil them for twenty or twenty-five minutes, then drain and soak them in cold water. Lard two of the sweetbreads with bacon, and stud the other two with fillets of raw truffles, pointed at one end. Put some slices of onions, carrots and turnips in a stewpan with some thin rashers of bacon, put in the sweetbreads, season with a little salt, and pour in some good broth to about three-fourths their height. Place a sheet of buttered paper over the sweetbreads, and boil them gently till the liquor is reduced to one-third, then place the lid on the stewpan with some hot ashes on it and finish cooking them. Ornament a border mould with some truffles, fill it with veal forcemeat and poach it in the bain-marie. When cooked turn the border of forcemeat onto a hot dish, place a piece of fried bread in the center masked with forcemeat, and fill up the hollow with cooked sliced truffles and mushrooms. Brush the sweetbreads over with melted glaze, and stand them on the border resting them on the block of bread. Place three button-mushrooms and a truffle between each sweetbread, garnish an attelette skewer with a truffle and a cockscomb, and fix it in the top of the bread support; pour round the dish a small quantity of brown sauce that has been reduced in a little white wine, trimmings of mushrooms and truffles. Serve the sweetbread with a sauceboatful of the same sauce.