Once you have mastered this you are on your way, your sweetbreads ready to welcome any number of companions on the plate with them.

We tend to use lamb sweetbreads, mainly because of cost and the small nodule factor. This is not to put down the larger and equally delicious veal sweetbread.

The first time I had sweetbreads was at Original Joe’s in San Jose, CA after leaving an opera. The sweetbreads were sauteed with mushrooms and finished with a bright tomato sauce. The glands had a slightly metallic, slightly sweet, but meaty flavor to them that I’ve never found anywhere else. I’ve been in love with them ever since.

Locally, I’ve only been able to find veal sweetbreads, so I ended up I ordering a pound of lamb thymus glands from Zituna with the lamb brains. Here they are after a good rinsing in cold water to remove all the residual blood.

The recipe called for enough water to cover the sweetbreads, a healthy splash of white wine, garlic, a bouquet garni and a few peppercorns. Thanks to Michael Rhulman’s “The Elements of Cooking”, I knew that I was making a court bouillion. I’d have not know that otherwise; thank you Mr. Rhulman!

Once the bouillion came up to a boil, I slipped the sweetbreads in and left them poach for only a few minutes to let them firm up a little bit.

After letting them cool for a while, I began removing the outer membrane. A few months back, I had to remove the membrane from veal sweetbreads, and I can’t begin to tell you how much harder it was compared to the lamb variety.

One scorching hot pan filled with butter and olive oil later, I started to brown my now seasoned sweetbreads. Mr. Henderson instructed me to look for the “nutty nodule”, not the “burnt offering” or the “anemic gland”.

I’d like to think of these as fine representatives of “nutty nodules”. Served plain with slices of lemon, the whole pound of sweetbreads was devoured in under five minutes by my wife and I. We timed it with a stopwatch. Really. To me, they tasted exactly like the sweetbreads I remembered so fondly at Original Joe’s, while my wife countered that these were better. That brought a huge grin to my face.

One down, one hundred and seventeen to go.