Lamb Sweetbreads 500g

Lamb* sweetbreads are a seasonal delicacy available from April to late August, early September. 

Much loved by our restaurant community, sweet lamb breads are unique when compared to other cuts of lamb or offal. They taste richer and sweeter than typical meat with a hint of iodine, tender and creamy in texture.

Lamb sweetbreads, classified as offal, are the pancreas and thymus glands, often called heart or throat sweetbreads. Best served simply; pan fry or grill to perfectly compliment spring flavours such as broad beans and a pea purée or asparagus spears. Top tip: sweetbreads love bacon! 

Chef Valentine Warner inspires:
"Lamb sweetbreads are delicious yet seldom seen on the home cook’s table and it would be a great shame if such jewels of the lamb were consigned to the epicurean’s joy only.

Tender, firm, creamy and delicately flavoured these are an absolute joy to lift towards expectant lips.

Lamb sweetbreads will need to be bought to simmer (only just submerged in salty water) and then immediately removed from the heat allowed to cool in said water. Peel the membrane off while warm as it is easier than when cold. At this point they will be pink within, a fast cook then finishing the outside but retaining a slightly lesser but important pinkness.

I like them lightly floured and then fried fast with lardons. The dish then finished with a little strong stock, sherry vinegar, cold butter whisked in, peas and lastly fresh mint.

They are fabulous seared and crisped to a rich golden brown and placed on a fresh corn and purée with cream and finished with grated English summer truffles.

With the late summer chanterelles, vermouth, cockles or clams, and cream and this ensures  a heartbreaker.

More simply they eat well with lardons in a watercress salad or simply with an immaculate finely chopped salsa verde with lots of fresh tarragon."

*Swaledale lambs roam free across vast distances, migrating between valleys and hill tops, foraging as they go. The limestone pastures of the Yorkshire Dales are home to a unique range of herbs, grass and wildflowers, the cocktail of which bestows the lamb with its distinctive flavour. Robust and slightly sweet in character, the Swaledale lamb also has a subtle herbal undertone; the provenance is unmistakably Yorkshire.