I was slightly surprised to find on the fresh meat counter of my local (Waitrose in the UK) supermarket yesterday, some lamb sweetbreads.
I had read about them, but never seen them up until then.
I’ve eaten plenty of lamb’s liver and kidney, and the occasional heart, but never sweetbreads.
So with some trepidation, I bought a couple. I looked up some recipes, but most were talking about elaborate preparation which I couldn’t be doing with, so today, as part of a “brunch”, I just did my usual thing of frying them gently in coconut oil.
Because I was afraid I wouldn’t like the flavour, I added bacon, and also fried a couple of eggs, soft.
To be honest, they had a fairly bland taste, but that was ok with me.
I am hopeful that, as with most offal, they had some nutritional value, and as also usually with offal, they were cheap.
They also had pieces of oxtail (also not usually there), so I bought a couple (which I am just cooking in a pressure cooker, along with some bones).
As I’ve mentioned, I’m not a recipes guy. Food is energy and nutrition to me, and I’m happy with a relatively small range of tastes and textures. Meat almost always tastes good, however you cook it, so long as it’s not overdone.
Whenever I watch cookery programmes on TV (never of my own choice, but occasionally one has to for family reasons…) I’m thinking to myself "FFS, life is too short for all this crap! I just need a frying pan, butter, coconut oil and some decent meat, and in 10-15 min, or at most half an hour, I’m done. (OK, different for bone broths or stews, but that’s almost all waiting time where you can get on with plenty of other stuff).