So, hi, who are you?
Spencer Gomez, head chef of Holeman and Finch Public House in Atlanta, GA.
We’re here today to talk about sweetbreads, what exactly are sweetbreads?
So sweetbreads are the thymus gland of a given animal.
It’s something that wasn’t always eaten necessarily but was kind of part of that eating
the whole animal.
People started eating sweetbreads and started eating kidneys and livers.
It’s that idea of, of not wasting and it’s not just with animal either, we do it with
everything.
It goes into our fermentation programs and our pickling programs.
Whatever the farmers bring in, that’s what we use.
As part of that utilization of using everything so you’re not wasting.
And fully supporting these farmers.
But it’s one of those things where you get a half pig in, or a whole pig and you can’t
just have pork chops on the menu or pork belly, some of these things people are used to seeing
because you have the whole animal to use.
To be responsible in not wasting any of it you have to find ways to use everything else.
I think sweetbreads are a big part of that.
There’s several different ways to prep them but for the most part what I’ve done in
the past is a quick saltwater blanch and then you pull them out and that, that enables you
to kind of clean them.
Improperly cooked or if you cook them too quickly, they can be chewy or tough.
So you’re really trying to do a passive slow cook on them.
So we’re going to do three dishes.
We’re going to do grilled sweetbreads with charred peaches and some fresh and bruleed
romaine leaves, and just a little bit of shallot.
A sorghum and citrus.
Some spiced pecans.
We’ll go ahead and plate these uh, these grilled sweetbreads.
A little light salt.
Benne seed, or sesame seed would be just fine.
Some torn squash blossoms.
And then a few dots of this charred onion puree.
That’ll be our grilled sweetbread salad.
And then what we’re going to do with these sweetbreads is we’re gonna just lightly,
lightly dust them in flour, and then we’ll go into the pan with them, kind of let them
get a little bit crispy.
Baby potatoes.
Baby onions.
Some salt.
A little bit of pepper.
We’re just trying to get a little bit of a good sear, kind of get a crust on everything.
A little bit of chicken stock.
Flowering thyme.
Baby spruce tips.
For our purposes today use this ramp vinegar.
Lay in potatoes.
Baby onions.
So I’ll just cut up a little of these fermented carrots.
A little bit of sauce.
Spruce tips and a little bit of a coriander and onion blossom.
This is actually just a puree of the greens and herbs and things like that.
The third thing that we’re going to do is like a fun take on popcorn sweetbreads.
I put them in a buttermilk dredge of buttermilk, hot sauce and pickle juice.
We’re going to bread those, kind of have a fried chicken dredge.
Give them a little bit of salt.
And then we have this um, creole seasoning.
We have a popcorn mayo.
We actually pop popcorn and grind it and fold it into a mayo and some house made hot sauce.
They’re not the easiest stuff to cook necessarily but once you have the prep done and stuff
it’s really easy to pick them up.
They’re not so crazy and weird, they’re just another protein.
Not intimidating once you watch it and taste it.
Give it a try, see what you think.
I know we have a first time sweetbreads person as well.
I think that you should take the initial bite.
Okay, here we go.
[Bell chimes].
Oh man.
I love the uh, the creamy texture.
That’s amazing how different it is from that.
The acid of the peach goes so well with the richness of the meat.
Also, trying to simultaneously eat off the same plate is a new fun experience.
Oh that’s so good.
The sweetbreads sweetness really comes out in that dish.
Rarely do I ever experience this but I feel like it really did melt in my mouth.
So the verdict is if you’ve ever wanted to try sweetbreads, you should give them a
try, don’t be intimidated.
Yeah, definitely.
They can be many things and all of them are delicious.