Sweet Sweet Breads

Ok, this class was straight out of fear factor. It was a little ridiculous to be honest with you. The menu… Sweetbreads, calf kidneys, calf liver and lamb tongue. I don’t know which one was the nastiest. I’ve had breaded sweetbreads at a nice restaurant, and they were really delicious. The sweetbreads we made were braised. Needless to say, they weren’t the most appetizing dishes we ever made, but I suppose they’re somewhat of a delicacy.

The lamb tongues were by far the most fun to make. After they were boiling for like 2 hours, we had to peel the skin off of them, which we did as a class, huddled around one table, and that was pretty fun.

Oh, it was POURING that day, so only about 7 of us made it to class. It happened to be the 7 of us who probably belong in the class. A number of the other students who were not as… I’m at a loss for words, but it was a good time, and Chef had a really good time, so it seemed.

SO after we peeled the lamb tongues, all we had to do was make the sauce, which was a little spicy. Chef said ours was perfect. And, quite frankly, the sauce was delicious. I took a piece of the tip of tongue, and it just felt weird.

I guess I should get a little more detailed, rather than just telling you how weird it was. The organ meats are divided up into 2 categories, white and red. As you can probably imagine, the reds include the liver, kidneys, heart and tongue. Not the most appetizing of food items, but probably better than the whites. The whites are generally the sweetbreads, brains, tripe, feet (chicken feet), and don’t laugh, testicles! The liver (lightly dredged in flour and sautéed) was alright, and kidneys (browned and gently braised) weren’t bad, but all in all, I feel like it was a class on how to serve the garbage parts of the animal, but I know that’s not true.