Last night we cooked organs. We made crispy fried sweetbreads with brown butter caper sauce, lamb tongue with potato salad and ravigote vinaigrette, sautéed calf's liver, and sautéed kidneys. In all honesty, I was excited to try some of these organs for the first time, but that excitement began to dwindle when I took a bowl of lamb tongues out of the refrigerator.
"Begin blanching your tongues, guys," chef said, instructing us to put the tongues on the stove with cold water. They were tight and curled, slightly purple, and still attached with larynx tissue. Contrary to how I feel about tongues near my mouth, I knew I did not want these animal tongues anywhere near my face.
They began to simmer, changing from a reddish/purple color to a blue/grey color. There's no way around it—they were ugly. When I think fine food and dining, the image of tongue does not enter my mind, and I never thought I'd peel a tongue, let alone cook one. I actually never planned on eating tongue either, but I consumed it on accident last January on a visit to Angel's Share in NoHo with my father and my sister. What I thought was a skewered piece of poultry turned out to be beef tongue, and surprising, it was good.
Not this tongue... Oh no. After poaching the tongues for three hours they were tender enough to serve. They were peeled, sliced, and presented on a mound of créme fraiche potato salad drizzled with a vinaigrette of fresh herbs and hard boiled eggs. Sounds like a picnic dish, does it not? Maybe it appeals to some people, but all in all, I'm not too fond of poached tongue, especially served with potato salad.
Sweetbreads, the on the other hand, are pretty delicious.
"Not only are they, in my mind, the most delicious, but the most agreeable," chef said. "It's the closest to 'normal' protein." Sweetbreads, which are thymus or pancreas glands of cows and sheep, are spongy proteins usually sliced and fried.
Normal? Well, maybe. My introduction to sweetbreads was in August when I dined at L'Ecole, which is an arm of the FCI curriculum. After my roommate and I expressed some curiosity to our server, he brought us a plate of sweetbreads during our meat course.
Last night we prepared the sweetbreads the same way they are made in the restaurant with a brown butter sauce. The browned butter is spiked with lemon to preserve the nutty brown color and peppered with capers and minced parsley. We served the sweetbreads on top of goat cheese polenta and sautéed spinach.
As a rule of thumb, cooked organs should be served with a sharp sauce to cut the strong flavor, which often requires vinegar or in the case of sweetbreads, acid from lemon. It's pretty common sense actually. Distract attention away from a less desirable taste by masking it with a decadent sauce.
When we prepared the liver, the sauce was just that. Sautéed onions release one of my favorite aromas, especially when they're sauteed in butter. Add some demi-glace, vinegar, and some fresh parsley, and you've got a real keeper. Add in the liver... and you've got a real nasty marriage of flavors, or atleast in my mind. The liver ruined the sauce before the sauce could really make the liver.
After one success and two fails, the kidneys were either going to end the night with a pleasant surprise or solidify my belief that organs as a focal point of a dish just aren't for me. I specify focal point because I know organs create fantastic pâté, charcuterie, and sauces. Kidneys literally left me with a bad taste in my mouth. I never spit food out, but I just couldn't continue to chew something so awful. Maybe I have poor, unsophisticated taste, but I just couldn't do it, even if they were served with a sauce made out of brandy, demi-glace, and cream. Sorry, but no thank you.
The beginning of my relationship with organs isn't off to a great start, but I do have hope. In level four we'll be exposed to cooking brain and foie gras, which is fattened (diseased) duck liver. Until then, I'll enjoy cooking the "normal" proteins.
