Sauteed Sweetbreads with Tomatoes and Peas
OK everyone knows that Sweetbread are the Thymus gland. Just had to clear that up first.
First I had to find sweetbreads in our less than sophisticated Tallahassee market. Clusters & Hops was the place. They were frozen in plastic and pricey but I was committed.
After defrosting them in a pot of cold water, I worked to remove the membrane. Marcella says, “It takes a little patience”, which is not my strong suit but I managed. They poach for about 5 minutes and then you can remove the rest of the membrane.
I cooked some onion in the butter and oil mixture and then added the chopped sweetbreads. They were supposed to “become a light colored brown all over but that didn’t happen. I’m not sure where I mad a mistake but the brown was all going onto the pan and the sweetbreads remained beige.
I added salt and (canned) chopped tomatoes with their juice and let it all simmer.
Finally I added the peas.
The dish was very pretty—actually Christmassy looking with the green peas playing off the red tomatoes.
BUT I really discovered that I don’t like sweetbreads. The texture just was off putting to me. My mom always orders them in high-end restaurants and I remember tasting them once at Michy’s in Miami.
Even Marcella could not make me warm up to the mushy-soft, livery, organ meat.
Love this post as I am quite certain that I would write the same thing. I commend you!
Curious how one can use descriptive language that is technically correct either to disparage or praise something. Sweetbreads can be described as “soft”, which leaves it to the reader to decide whether that is good or bad. I would add “satiny soft”, which would make it clear where I stand, Jan adds “mushy” which makes it clear where she stands. “Livery” is not correct if the sweetbreads were in good condition, because “sweet” is part of the name and part of the taste. You would never describe liver, however delicious, as “sweet”. Then Jan adds “organ meat”. It has been already established that it is meat and that it an organ, but Jan’s placement has an obviously derogatory emphasis, which I think is inappropriate when applied to good food. I am not debating taste, with a husband averse to eating fowl I am in a vulnerable position. What I deplore is questioning the merit of any food that so many others admire. Jane sounds as though she would wear a large button saying “I don’t eat organ meats”.