2009/01/05
I have conflicting feelings about the presentation of offal. Part of me feels that offal should be presented as it is, in gory detail, with no effort made to dress it up or mask it. We should present it for what it is in order to confront people with the byproducts of their lifestyles, and encourage people to be more comfortable with utilizing the whole animals. The more they see it, the more they try it, the more it'll become mainstream.
Another part of me, however, feels that offal should be snuck into the food of unsuspecting eaters. I don't necessarily mean that they shouldn't be told what's in their food, just that we should make an effort to present offal in the form less adventurous diners will find most palatable.
I don't know how to resolve those two sides, but this dish swings strongly toward the latter view. It's sweetbread "McNuggets" (not endorsed by, nor affiliated with McDonald's or any related entity). They're little chunks of veal sweetbreads fried in a modified tempura batter I designed to brown up and crunch similarly to McDonald's Chicken McNuggets, which I find very delicious. Yep, I'm gonna go ahead and throw that out there. I love McDonald's. So I wanted very much to make sweetbread McNuggets that were somewhat close to the real deal.
I convinced Jeanette to help me with my silly plan for McNuggets, so she set about attempting to duplicate the famous McNugget container. She ended up getting it pretty close. This was really a trial run for a dinner party, so we'll have a chance to perfect the containers later, but this was pretty darn good for not having a template.
Anyway, I soaked the sweetbreads in ice water for about 8 hours, changing the water twice. The purpose of this step is to let any blood remaining in the sweetbreads dissipate into the water. If you don't change out the water every few hours, it will supposedly go bad (though I don't believe this would be the case in only 8 hours).
Next, I blanched the sweetbreads for about 3 minutes in order to firm up the membranes, then shocked them immediately in ice water to stop the cooking. Once they were cool, I removed the remaining membranes, which was very easy after the blanching and shocking. Then I simmered the sweetbreads in water (I'd have preferred to use stock, but didn't have anything but crab stock and fish stock on hand) for about 40 minutes, and took them out and drained them.
Once done, I cut them into nugget-sized pieces and breaded them with a tempura batter (1 cup rice flour, 1 cup soda water). First I'd dredge a piece in just some rice flour, then dunk it in the tempura batter, then deep fry it in peanut oil. I made one, just to test it, and discovered that the batter wasn't browning up the way I wanted it to, so I added some agave nectar (since I knew that the sugars would caramelize and brown the batter). I'm not sure exactly how much I added. I tried another one, then added more agave nectar, and that got them pretty much perfect. I would guess that I added about 2 tbsp light agave nectar to the batter. Once they came out of the oil, I salted them and drained them on paper towels.
I served them with pomegranate barbecue sauce (made by combining about 2/3 barbecue sauce--I use Sweet Baby Ray's, and I highly recommend it--with about 1/3 pomegranate molasses, which is made of pure, cooked down pomegranate). They were quite delicious, and I would have been happy to get them in any restaurant. I will definitely be making them for the party. Still, I don't think the interior texture of the nuggets was perfect. I'd prefer them to be a little more firm. The trouble is that I don't know whether I should have simmered them longer, or for less time! Anyone have any insight?
Posted by Barzelay on 2009/01/05 @ 4:28 | Comments (3) | Meat
Comments
Further thoughts: I just remembered that I've seen sources before that recommended pressing the sweetbreads with some flat, heavy thing while they cooled (after simmering, before frying). Seems like that could possibly make the end product more firm and dense.
Posted by: Barzelay at January 5, 2009 2:12 PM
First of all, I love McNuggets. I once ate two 20-piece nuggets in one sitting. My sauce of choice is their buffalo sauce; easily the best use of food additives ever. Like Popeye's, it is no shame to love a good product, no matter how un-PC it is.
Now for the sweetbreads. If you're going to press them, you should do it after soaking and blanching, but before simmering. However, I think the pressing is one of those parts of old-school French technique that's been shown over time to be pretty useless. I don't know of any restaurants that do that, although Jacques Pepin recommends it in his aspic-laden "La Technique". Then again, the point of pressing is to get rid of any blood (or pink juices, as Pepin awkwardly calls them...) left in the sweetbreads, so that doesn't answer the question.
(Also, though you're right that soaking the sweetbreads in the same water for a long time won't make them go bad, it does help to change the water, depending on how much water you are using. Of course, the point of the water changes is to facilitate osmosis and thus to extract as much blood as possible, but if you use enough water, it shouldn't matter...).
So, denser sweetbreads. First of all, I'm guessing you blanched them by starting them off in cold water and bringing them up to a boil. I don't think it would affect the consistency of the sweetbreads even if you didn't, though... The only thing I would say is to simmer them less. I like my sweetbreads pretty soft (though I think that for this application, firmer would be better, especially for dipping purposes), and I only simmer for 15-25 minutes. 40 seems a little long.
Mmmmm...sweetbread McNuggets.
Posted by: Jon F. at January 8, 2009 1:28 AM
Thanks! I'll try that next time. Thomas Keller in the French Laundry Cookbook only prescribes 20 minutes for the simmer for a roasted sweetbreads dish. I'll see if the same works better for these. They already held together perfectly for dipping, they just weren't as firm inside as normal McNuggets (not that they necessarily need to be).
And if the only purpose of pressing was more extraction of blood, then fuck that step.
Posted by: Barzelay at January 8, 2009 1:50 AM