Series Two: Part Nine - Ris de Veau et Cervelles

Why is it that the thymus gland for digestive purposes is referred to as "sweetbread" but brains just remains brains. No romantic reframing - with brains there is no mistaking what you are eating. Both from the term and also that characteristic convolution of gray matter and the underlying cerebral white matter- it is a give away.
Brains for dinner didn't quite conjure up the excited and can't wait to eat it response from the family. At the best I had two "I'm willinging to try it" and one "You don't expect me to eat that". It was a call out to my parents who I know were open to eating it (as served to me as a child) so that my gourmet dish was not prepared in vain.
I sourced the brains from "Vetreo" a Mediterranean food speciality shop in Napier - $14.80 for 6. The product was prepared in Wairoa at Affco for the French market - seemed very appropriate. I was going to stop at that, however the "Pak n Save" al cheapo supermarket had a special on sweet breads - I couldn't believe my luck.


Julia dedicates a section within Chapter Seven in Mastering the Art of French cooking on "Sweetbreads and Brains". Both pretty much have the same texture and flavour, but brains are more delicate. Both need to be soaked in several hours in cold water before they are cooked to soften the filament patches and to whiten them. There was quite a section explaining soaking and trimming, however the sweetbreads seemed pretty much trimmed and ready and the brains only needed a little snipe off of the opaque bits at the base.


For the sweetbreads the preliminary cooking that Julia recommend was braising. The soaked sweetbreads are cooked in butter to firm them a little, then baked with wine and herbs. For the sauce I chose the "Ris de Veau a la crème" - creamed sweetbreads. This was a successful entrée with even eldest daughter reporting "Sweat breads were quite nice actually despite being from Julia Childs."


The brains were for the main dish ... "Cervelles en Matelote" - Calf brains in red wine with mushrooms and onions". I had lamb brains which Julia reassuringly noted that these were equally as good as calves. The brains were firstly cooked in wine and a herb stock before being sliced and arranged into the serving dish. A sauce which had a tomato base was made and poured over the brains and the prepared mushrooms ( I didn't have any of the small brown braised onions at the ready so I left them out).  I served these with mashed potato and broccili. As an emergency standby I can cheerios at the ready.


All adults readily ate their serving but the girls relied on the cheerios for their dose of protein that night!

The brain's

The sweetbreads

Gourmet taste testers

Eating brains!