Miss Corson's practical American cookery and household management

Prepare the sweetbreads- by blanching them ; cut them across in slices half an inch thick, and season them lightly with pepper and salt ; have ready over the fire a fryingkettle half full of smoking-hot fat ; roll the slices of sweetbread in finely sifted cracker or bread crumbs, dip them in beaten egg, roll them again in the crumbs, and then fry them golden brown in the hot fat; when they are done, remove them from the fat with a skimmer, lay them on brown paper for a moment to free them from grease, and then serve them hot. SIDE-DISHES (ENTREMÉS). 283 SWEETBREADS IN THE CHAFING-DISB. If sweetbreads are prepared as directed in the preceding recipe until they are ready to fry, they can be quickly browned at the table in a chafing-dish, just enough butter being used to prevent burning. The more quickly sweetbreads are fried, the better they are ; hence the advantage of cooking them in a chafing-dish. RAGOUT OF SWEETBREADS AND MUSHROOMS FOR VOL-AU-VENT. To make this ragout, use canned button mushrooms, and sweetbreads blanched according to directions given elsewhere. Cut the mushrooms and sweetbreads into half-inch pieces. For a quart vol-au-vent case, use a can of mushrooms and two large or four small sweetbreads ; put over the fire, in a thick saucepan, two tablespoonfuls each of flour and butter, and stir them until they begin to bubble ; then gradually stir in the liquor in which the mushrooms were canned, and enough white broth, cream, or milk to make a sauce thick enough to coat the spoon; put the sweetbreads and mushrooms into this sauce, season it palatably with salt and white pepper, and let it simmer until the sweetbreads are entirely white and tender ; if they are good this will be in about five minutes, as they will have been partly cooked in blanching ; the mushrooms are cooked in canning. If when the ragout is done, it has' become too thick, thin it with a litde milk, and see that it is palatably seasoned ; add to it the beaten yolks of two raw eggs, and a glass of wine, and use it for a vol-au-vent as directed in the recipe for ragoUt of oysters for vol-au-vent. HOW TO BOIL CALF'S HEAD AND FEET. Have the butcher remove the hair (by scalding and scraping) and the teeth and eyes from the head, and split it in two pieces without cutting the tongue or brains; lay the brains in cold water containing a handful of salt, until it is time to cook them; thoroughly wash the head in plenty of cold water, carefully scraping the interior of the nasal passage and the mouth ; have the butcher remove the hair from the feet, by scalding and scraping them, and split them in halves ; put the head, feet, and tongue, over the fire in enough cold water to cover them, with a heaping tablespoonful of salt, and a teaspoonful of whole peppercorns, or a small red pepper, and boil them until the bones can be pulled out easily ; the broth in which the head is boiled is to be strained, and saved for soup ; the tongue is to be taken up as soon as it is tender, the skin stripped ofif, and the tongue wrapped in a wet cloth and kept in a cool place until it is wanted. After the brains have lain for an hour in cold water, pull off all the outer membrane, being careful not to break the substance of the brain in removing the membrane from between the folds.