Feuillentine of Sweetbreads

Back on the Pierre White bandwagon again this week with two recipes spread over two courses. The first of which is the Feuillentine of Sweetbreads which was served to Pierre Koffmann in the 'Marco cook's for...' series.

I've had sweetbreads sitting in the freezer for a little while now just waiting for this recipe. I managed to get hold of Bianchetti truffles from the market in Florence in preserved form. When I opened these they were little nuggets of flavour, a quick tour through a warm pan with the pine nuts and almonds goes to create part of the garnish.

Bianchetti truffles

 

I began the recipe by making the vinaigrette, simply combining olive oil and white wine vinegar with seasoning before adding walnut oil and double cream to produce a subtle vinaigrette with a slightly nutty flavour.



Vinaigrette

Onto the sweetbreads. To prepare these its recommended by Marco to remove the membrane around the gland from its raw state. Traditional methods include blanching, probably the most common way of doing this, but Marco disapproves due to this method adding to loss of flavour. It makes sense really as its easier to get the sweetbread nice and crisp from raw with the aid of a hot pan and some oil.

I'd previously tackled sweetbreads in the Pig's Trotter dish and not found them to be too troublesome, a sharp knife and the courage to take long swipes at the membrane should result in the whole piece staying together in one piece.

Sweetbread frying

Oven-roasted Sweetbread

Once the sweetbread has toasted up in the hot pan its into the oven for 4 minutes to finish cooking it through.

The only other part of the dish is the actual filo pastry discs to create the millfeuille effect. Marco doesn't mention in the book to stick the layers of filo together with eggwash, just to eggwash the top so definitely something to look out for. I fried the discs quickly in clarified butter until golden and crisp.

Filo disc preparation

Frying Filo discs

Plating the dish proved tricky, the salad around the outside gives a false sense of  'well this isn't going to be too tricky now is it'. Building a tower of sweetbread, pine nut, truffle and vinaigrette is a pain in the arse, the damn thing chose every opportunity to topple or do a Leaning Tower of Pisa impression. Thankfully the tower remained intact leaving us to enjoy the dish.

Truffle slices and pine nuts

The final plate

From the first bite I wasn't impressed, it all seemed a bit too subtle and very un-Marco-like. A twist of seasoning on the sweetbread later changed my opinion, its a nice plate of food. The pine nuts, almonds and sweetbreads interlink very well and the salad and pastry adds good crispy texture. It did feel a touch greasy if I had to be really critical but overall not a bad dish.