Sweetbreads or Kidneys?

[HoofTrimmer]

We just had a young steer butchered. I brought home the sweetbreads and the kidneys. I cooked them up and found that they were quite good.

The objections made by my family were mostly psychological with the exception of the sweetbreads which were kinda spongy.

The flavors were good. I like organ meat so maybe they wouldn't be appreciated by everyone. I soaked the kidneys overnight in salt water with a few rinses. Made a steak and kidney pie, very good. I precooked the sweetbreads and prepared them according to an old recipe which had bacon in it. This helped to mask the new flavor some.

Anyone else tried these things?

HoofTrimmer
BTW: sweetbreads are the thymus gland found in the neck. Usually used from lambs and calves, maybe pigs.

ALSO... I am forbidden to take anymore animals to the locker plant because I bring home strange things!

 

[mudwrench]

have eaten both many times very good both were once considered a delicacy but now with things from the store in fancy wrappers they have fallen out of style i see no problem with eating them mostwere eaten once a year around the time the animal was butchered so it wasnt a problem i wouldnt eat organs everyday
but once a year wont hurt anybody my irish grandmother also cooked the lungs they cook into a sort of gravy put it on dumplings was called faggots and sauce i do not know where the name came from but they were good wow

 

[HoofTrimmer]

Cool mudwrench!

While I was talking with the butcher he was telling me that some folks wanted all of these odd things from their pig. They even wanted to keep the blood. He was going to let them have it except then he found out they were trying to get him to butcher a pot bellied pig and he said no way.

I have a friend who's mom used to keep the blood of a butchered hog for blood pudding or sausage, I forget which. This would send average joe/jane American into shock today wouldn't it?

HoofTrimmer

 

[vikan]

Well, I'm certainly glad someone knows how to cook kidneys right. I tried frying some up many years ago without knowing anything about soaking them first.
The bad thing was I was too poor to buy anything else, so I went hungry that night.

 

[Indiansummer]

I have eaten sweetbreads, and found them delicious. I have some trouble wiht organs meats at times, especially liver. I think it is mostly due to terrible nose bleeds, as a child, having swallowed enough blood to vomit a clot the size of calves liver onto my own plate. Looked exactly like raw liver, yetch!!!!! I have overcome this problem in the years since childhood to some extent, but I don't often prepare these foods, as my family will not eat them.

My father raised a lot of our meats, chickens, hogs, and beef, even lamb. He also had built his own smokehouse, and cured hams and bacon, also salmon. Best bacon I ever ate, and there is no place to find anything like it around anymore. He used the cherry, and apple woods from trees on our property that had to be taken down. What a treat!

I would never even sample headcheese though, no matter how he tried to encourage me to!! Just the name did it for me! He also made blood sausage, which I wouldn't touch with a ten foot pole, except once, I gulped a chug of what I thought to be tomatoe juice, boy, I learned my lesson there! Pigs, Blood, Oh God, I'm dying!!!!!