Roadfood Sweetbreads

Sweetbreads are one of my favorite foods. Unfortunately, here in New York, you can usually only get them in fairly expensive restaurants serving haute/nouvelle cuisine. Not that I mind paying top dollar for them, but I'd really love to hear about where anyone gets "down home" preparations of this dish. Anywhere in the USA or even abroad. I figure if we can get inexpensive, perfectly fried chicken livers, chitlin's, and rocky mountain oysters, we ought to be able to get similarly prepared sweetbreads. At home I dredge them in seasoned flour, shallow fry in a cast iron skillet, and douse them with lemon juice and a shot of Tabasco on my plate. Great eating!

Have never tried sweetbreads but would like too !!


Don't mean to sound ignorant, but aren't they only from lambs ????

The preferred sweetbreads are from veal only. It is the thymus gland. I did not know myself, but I looked it up on Google. I think I will stick with burgers.

Paul E. Smith
Knoxville, TN

No, they can be from any mammal, but lamb and veal are the most common. They are from either the pancreas (my preferred cut) or the thymus gland (smaller cut, still tasty). My favorite are veal sweetbreads. The taste and texture are similar to brains but not as loose - less messy. An acquired taste, perhaps, but if you are a fan of other offal, I think you will be surprised by how much you like them.

quote:

Originally posted by Sundancer7

I think I will stick with burgers.

Sundancer - I had you pegged as a more adventurous eater than that! Next time you see them on the menu as an appetizer (they are frequently an appetizer) then you can sample them without shelling out the price of an entree. Who knows, you might become their biggest fan!

I was in Buenos Aires, Argentina and all BBQ places there served glands which included the thymus. I left it alone as well as other glands that they served. I stayed with familiarity. I am a roadfooder, but I do not get too far out.

Paul E. Smith
Knoxville, TN

Hop on over to Queens to Salut, up around 107th or 8th St. It's a small Uzbeki restaurant and they have (or did up until fall 2002, which was my last visit) skewered and grilled sweetbreads cooked to perfection - and inexpensive. If you run across any Romanian restaurants in your travels, check them out for sweetbreads too.

Thank you RubyRose. I have eaten at Sammy's Roumanian on Christy street and gotten sweetbreads as part of their mixed grill, but as you may know, they are not inexpensive. What neighborhood in Queens is that - sounds like Forest Hills - am I close?

Not exactly cheap, but not exactly Haute Cuisine, the 13 Coins Restaurants in Seattle and SeaTac both feature sweetbreads entrees in the $12-15 range. They're not bad, although I've had firmer.

Eric, Glandularly

Can someone explain to me why, if things like sweetbreads or tongue are considered 'offal', then why are they so damned expensive? It burns me up to pay $13-16 for a beef tongue. Especially here in Colorado, where they are hand to get your hands on.

Oops, obviously I meant HARD to get your HANDS on.

No *doubt* about offal prices being, well, awful.

A lot of it has to do with the growth of centralized packinghouses that send the offal to where there's the most demand....tongue is a hot commodity in Seattle- there's a lot of pho noodle soup places that use it, there's a great Italian deli-guy who cures it, we have a bunch of asian markets, etc. Tongue regularly costs as much at wholesale here as whole tenderloins.

Eric

Ox-Tails were $3.78 a lb. at our Walmart this weekend. The ox-tail stew didn't materialize at that price !!

Doesn't chorizo contain part of the thymus, or is it lymph material ???

Doesn't all good sausage contain everything but the squeal, or moo, or baa or whatever the case may be !!!

quote:

Originally posted by kangolpimp

What neighborhood in Queens is that - sounds like Forest Hills - am I close?

Yes, Forest Hills, and it is most definitely not a fancy place but the food makes up for it.

There's a great story about Eleanor Roosevelt, whose supervision of White House menus was a bit eccentric. Particularly fond of sweetbreads, she once ordered them served four times in one week. Franklin left a note in her bedside basket (their chosen mode of communication) good-naturedly complaining that the delicacy was giving him an upset stomach, "which does not help my relations with foreign powers. Yesterday I bit two of them."

quote:

Originally posted by Lone Star

Doesn't chorizo contain part of the thymus, or is it lymph material ???

I know one of the ingredients listed on the chorizo package is "lights" which are lungs.

Does anyone know where I could purchase fresh veal sweetbreads? I live in the Chicago area. My grandmother cooked them to perfection and I inherited all of her wonderful recipes and cookbooks. I would love to make them but cannot find them anywhere.

Thank you