Another happy encounter between Anna Del Conte and Blue Rooster Farm, which offered both "beef" and lamb sweetbreads at their last visit to Sheridan School. I'd cooked sweetbreads two or three times before but fortunately Del Conte takes you through all the steps -- the soaking, the blanching, removing the membrane, etc.
It's not hard, but important to follow. The blanching is done in water brought to a boil with a small stalk of celery and slice of onion in it, then add 1 Tbl. wine vinegar and salt and put in the soaked and drained sweetbread for just 5 min. or so, and then remove the membrane. Del Conte emphasizes the two different parts of the sweetbread (the thymus gland of a young animal, which is why "veal" or "calf" is more appropriate in describing it) -- the heart, a big rectangular shaped piece, and the throat, several smaller pieces. So for the heart piece she recommends slicing, breading and sauteeing, whereas this recipe is the one she recommends for the throat pieces.
Realistically, we're not going to cook the different parts for different meals and were not going to do two recipes for the same meal, so I opted to cut the heart piece into slices for this one. You coat the pieces in flour and put into a skillet with lots of sizzling butter and a "bruised" clove of garlic, flip the pan a few times to get them browned all over, and then, according to the recipe, add 5 Tbl. of meat broth for another minute then toss with the juice of a lemon and 3 Tbl. chopped parsley. I doubled the times since I wasn't sure about how long the heart slices would take to cook -- so I browned the pieces for 4 min. and cooked in the broth for 2 min., and I don't think they were overcooked.
We accompanied with the polenta left over from the previous day, cut into strips, brushed with oil and put under the broiler until a bit crispy on the outside, and a nice, crunchy green bean and red onion salad from Broad Branch.
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