Crispy veal sweetbreads: recipe and tricks for cooking them
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Total: 2 h 15 min Diners: 4
Possibly veal sweetbreads are one of the strangest products to cook for almost everyone. I remember perfectly how the first time I ventured with them all my gastronomic knowledge was blocked telling me: “Let’s see what you do with them”. It was like looking into an abyss of infinite possibilities without understanding the raw material in front of me. Will it be treated like normal meat? Will I have to do something special?
Effectively, yes. When we talk about this type of offal so popular in Spain – and almost all in general – we must take into account certain important aspects so that the result is optimal. The first of them is that we will have to bleed our sweetbreads very well, to clean them as much as possible, and we will also have to remove all the outer webs very carefully to ensure that they are not rubbery, chewy or too smooth.
I have done many tests with the veal sweetbreads and you can also cook them over low heat in water or, almost better if you are going to fry them later, confit them at a very low temperature. But the best I have ever had was when they were cooked at low temperature. Of course, something very important is that you have to be careful and you have to dry them very, very well before frying them so they do not explode when you want to give them that final crunchy touch, which is a risk that you run with them and that could even damage them.
You can serve them with a light garlic sauce, fried as they are accompanied by some flavored mayonnaise or with a traditional sauce such as Spanish sauce or even some barbecue sauce like the one they make in Èter. If you prefer not to fry at the end, another option to finish the sweetbreads will be in the oven lacquering them or in a frying pan very little by little. The goal is that they are very tender inside and outside are hyper crispy.
How to make veal sweetbreads crispy on the outside and very tender on the inside
Ingredients
. Gizzards of tenera, 500 g Garlic cloves, 8 pcs Dried thyme, one sprig Dried oregano, 1 teaspoon Apple cider vinegar, 4 tablespoons Salt, c/s Ground black pepper, c/s Mild olive oil, abundant Spanish sauce to accompany, 8 tablespoons (optional)
Step 1
Insert the sweetbreads in a large bowl or basin with plenty of water, the vinegar and ice and let them bleed out in the refrigerator for 6-12 hours. It is perfect if we change that water halfway through the time so that it is cleaned and the vinegar returns to make its effect in a purer form.
Step 2
Drain the sweetbreads very well, we can help ourselves with kitchen paper, leaving them wrapped in it for a while. With the help of a sharp knife or a pointilla and patience enough to go slowly removing all the cobwebs or gizzards that cover the gizzards, without fear because they do not break, you can pull a little.
Step 3
Vacuum pack the sweetbreads in a bag along with a couple of cloves of garlic, a little oil, salt and herbs or, if you don’t have a vacuum packer, put all that in a large oil bath to confit them at a very low temperature.
Step 4
Cook the packaged sweetbreads at a low temperature of 70°C for 150 minutes. Or confit them -unpackaged- in the oil, covered, at a very low temperature for 2 hours or until very tender when pierced. Remove and let them cool completely.
Step 5
When they are completely cool, slice the sweetbreads into medallions about two centimeters thick if we like a tender bite inside or one centimeter if we like them crispier.
Step 6
Put plenty of oil to heat in a frying pan, with the whole garlic, and when it is very hot fry the sweetbreads in batches of a few pieces, turning them over until they are golden brown and crispy on the outside.
Step 7
Break the sweetbreads on kitchen paper or a colander to release the fat and serve as they are with a little salt or add the Spanish sauce or any other sauce to taste: a barbecue, a teriyaki, a sweet and sour, an orange sauce…
