Amuse Bouche – Veal Sweetbread, Cardoons, Prosciutto, Sherry Vinegar Caramel

I believe to be a good chef, the cooks you have in the kitchen should occasionally go home and bitch to their spouse or friends about the bastard they are working for.  I thought this amuse would do the trick with the sweetbreads and their tendency to ’spit’ oil as they are cooking. I thought they would spit even more because they they weren’t poached and dried prior to frying them. Surprisingly, they didn’t spit at all, and I am not really sure as to why. The reason they ’spit’ is because water will get trapped in a pocket inside until it eventually meets the hot oil. And then suddenly, splat! Next, a manly cook screams an octave higher than their normal pitch while their comrades laugh inside if not aloud. I’ve received many a welt in this fashion and rival Michael Jackson with my scream. In any case, the sweetbreads really came out well and none of the cooks should be bitching at all… at least not because of the sweetbreads.
After removing all of the thin membrane and cutting them into bite sized pieces, they were soaked in a buttermilk we made using skim milk and sherry vinegar. Next they were breaded and fried crispy. The result was a beautifully moist inside, and crunchy exterior.
The idea here with the amuse though was not so much about the sweetbreads, but about the versatility of the cardoons that I will keep blogging about until my ideas are exhausted, notice is paid, or I rename the blog ‘The Pickled Cardoon’.
The cardoons are sauteed with slivered garlic and deglazed with a good sherry vinegar. They are then seasoned and topped with veal demi glace and cooked until tender and all of the stock is cooked out. A chiffonade of sage is folded in at the end. The sauce is made from caramelizing sugar, adding shallots, deglazing with the sherry vinegar and mounting with butter. A couple of refinements should have been made… the butter shouldn’t have been added to the sauce, but left as a clear caramel sauce with the vinegar. Second, the prosciutto kept the dish from being Spanish and the sherry vinegar kept it from being Italian… I disdain this mumble jumble and though exhausted - as my innocent baby is still jet lagged and wanting to attack her toys with me at 4am - I am let down with myself for not being more focused. Neither this or that is what I call con-FUSION cuisine.