I’ll be getting everything back to the way it was here shortly.  I do apologize for the mess.

Ryan

On other pages I have sung the praises of how the pig’s snout and belly both have that special lip-sticking quality of fat and flesh merging, but this occurs in no part of the animal as wonderfully as on the tail.  Like an ice cream on a stick, a pig’s tail offers up all of the above on a well-behaved set of bones.  By the by, dealing with any slightly hairy extremities of pig, I recommend a throwaway Bic razor (hot towels and shaving cream not required).  You must ask your butcher for long tails.

Happy Labor Day to you and yours, if you happen to be celebrating it.  Since I took last week off accidentally, I’ll be updating today as penance.

I’d like to first point out that I could not for the life of me find long pig tails.  I asked at farmer’s markets, I bothered foodie friends, and I hit up local butchers.  Nobody in Texas had access to long piggy tails.  I don’t know if it’s because the tails are docked here in America or what, but these stubby little extremities were all I could find.  Please Mr. Henderson, forgive me.

After removing the tails from their Styrofoam prisons, I gave each one of them a good scrubbing before resting them in a heavy oven proof pan.

The tails were shortly met with a half bottle of red wine, some chicken stock, the usual stock vegetables, a bouquet garni and some whole peppercorns.  Mr. Henderson asked for a simple braising, and I was ready to play along.  The pan was then covered with heavy duty aluminum foil and placed into a hot oven for a little over three hours.

After the allotted time had expired I pulled the pan out of the oven and checked to see if the tails had properly cooked.  Mr. Henderson mentions that the flesh should be soft enough to allow one to easily pinch through it.  One quick piggy tail pinch later and their doneness was confirmed as acceptable.

At this point the tails needed to cool down and solidify, so they were placed in the fridge for the evening.

The next day my wife and I set up three bowls for breading the now cold piggy tails.

The first bowl held a few cups of flour seasoned with salt and pepper.  Special thanks to my wife for the hand modeling.

The second bowl was filled with raw eggs mixed with some of the always excellent Colman’s mustard.

Finally, the tails ended up in a big bowl of panko bread crumbs.  Mr. Henderson never specified which kind of bread crumbs he expected us to use, so I went for my favorite.

The tails were then placed into a butter-filled, sizzling hot pan.  I quickly tossed each tail in the butter a few times before dropping the whole thing in a sweltering hot oven to brown.  How good does that sound?  Gold brown pig tail?   Mmm, mmm, mmm!

And here is the finished product, served with a side salad of watercress.  The tails on their own are fantastic: crispy, fatty, porky goodness in a hand friendly package.  Mr. Henderson suggests that diners might enjoy they tails with a spot of malt or red wine vinegar, and he’s quite right.  You really need something acidic to cut the fatty nature of the tails down a little.

The next time you head to the Asian market, check if they have pig tails handy.  If they do, FIND A WAY TO MAKE THIS RECIPE.  Beg, borrow or buy a copy of the book and do yourself a favor.   I totally intend on making this again, and soon.  It’s just that good.

One down, forty eight to go.

I’ll be working on my piggy tail update tonight.  In the meantime, here’s an amazing video about being a butcher. 

Enjoy!

Let this be known; you are about to read about balls. Not just any balls, but those prepared for a late summer meal. It may be difficult to get through this without fleeting giggles or cringing in a certain discomfort. However, I urge you, as if I were the chairman of the American Organization for Testicles on School Lunch Menus to not only read this through but to consider trying an organ meat that has been too long ignored by the dining community.

A word on some problematic nomenclature; when putting the below piece together, I really struggled with how to refer to the ingredient at hand. The term “Fry,” as in “Lamb Fry” is all wrong and must be discarded. It conveys neither dignity nor respect nor does it pretend to. It is a condescending affection, just as one might call a runty nephew “Champ” or “Sport.” However, to call the organ by name, a technique that is perfectly adequate (if not entirely creative) for most offal, risks the overly clinical handle “Testicle.” We are then left with the slightly sophomoric, “Ball.”

Thinking neither quite perfect, I was pleased when I learned that the French, in their love of all things genital and gustatory have already covered this with the evocative term, “animelles” which is at once dignified and enthralling. The name suggests that by consuming this meat one is getting to the true nature of the beast. That, anyway is the way that I prefer to interpret it. However, though I love France, I am not French and I will use what sticks. Balls it is.

I bought a pair from some very enthusiastic farmers in Cincinnati’s Findlay Market on a whim when I saw them listed at $1.25 a pound.  These guys were actually selling all their offal at that price, lamb hearts and livers, beef tongues, heart and assorted chicken clockwork, a find that stuns me even now. The pair that I got were frozen solid which I don’t think does them a bit of harm, though in fairness I have no clue.

Prep is not for the fainthearted. Even in a family of anatomical meats, few things resemble their namesake quite as literally as balls.  The street name, in other words is not simply metaphor.  Furthermore lamb’s balls are not delicate little organs. These are not peensy kumquats that nestle in wooly little scrotums of boy lambs as they scamper among the daisies. Each one fills the hand and has the heft and resilience of a soft-boiled egg. These, my friends are whopping big balls.

Complicating things from the standpoint of squeamishness, balls are identical in form and function amongst all members of the mammal class. If you ask a person what he thought his set looks like, he would describe to the vein, that which now rests on my cutting board. The key difference being that what rests on my cutting board is nearly the size of a closed fist.

Enclosing each individual organ is a tough translucent sack that must be removed, as does the ropey, purple duct attached to each. Once peeled (really just a matter of slicing open the sack and popping out the organ), the texture is cheerful, almost jolly. They have a lively bounce and a pearlescent sheen that is just lovely. It does remind me of one of offal’s finest virtues; it is dead simple to know when it is fresh.

Because I am impatient, I choose to skip the proscribed step of soaking, blanching and marinating the balls and opt instead for a simple dredge in flour and sauté in brown butter, fried sage and a bit of lemon.

It is a bit difficult to divide each organ evenly, as the meat is quite soft. There is a thin membrane enclosing each piece. Wanting neat slices, I discard the ends for three even rounds. Both texturally and visually, they are identical to scallop.

In the pan, the slices give off the faintest smell of lamb, but only barely. It’s difficult to describe, exactly. I suppose I am struck not by how it does smell but more by how it doesn’t. There is no heady cloud of browning meat or rendering fat, just butter, sage and a faint odor of lamb. The smell is great. The browned pieces go right onto a slice of fried bread topped with the pan juices.

First bite.

Ok. There are plenty of odd cuts that I really, truly enjoy; pig’s feet, tongue, brains, blood sausage. But balls? Balls are excellent. I don’t mean that they are, “actually pretty tasty,” “surprisingly good” or “better than expected.” I mean that balls are a damn fine thing to eat, full stop. They belong on a list of favorite foods right next to Haribo gummi bears, thick sliced bacon and oyster po-boys. The texture once cooked is again, identical to scallop and they have a flavor that is mild but unlike any meat, organ or otherwise that I have had to date. This is the sort of thing that in a more forgiving world would be wrapped in bacon and grilled for Superbowl Parties or deep fried and eaten on a sandwich (Lamb-ball Parm?) at construction sites. They are that good.

I just wish there were more than two to a pack.

Thanks Mr. Horan!

This may sound like a grim dish in a grim vegetarian cafe, but it is not.  Unfortunately I have not been able to think up a more tempting name for this delicious dish yet.  It calls out to be eaten with roast lamb.

I had a great time this weekend at the annual Cupcake Smackdown helping little children fire cupcakes at zombies, watching my friend Paul down Jaffa Cakes at an amazing speed in an attempt to break the world record, and the general fun of being around a lot of great people.

Growing up, my family never ate turnips.  It’s not that we had an aversion to them or anything, there was just never a good reason to pick a lowly turnip over the potato, king of root vegetables.  As a matter of fact this is only the second time I’ve ever cooked turnips, the first being for the Lamb’s Tongues, Turnips, and Bacon recipe I made a few years back.   Even then I admonished myself to use them more often.  I should probably start paying attention to my own suggestions.

Now, this is right where there should be a picture of my lovely wife peeling the turnips. Or maybe one of her thinly slicing them on a mandolin. Or heck, even a picture of me thinly slicing an onion on our other mandolin would be nice.   I can’t do show you any of those pictures because I totally forgot to take any.  So in their place, here is a video of dueling mandolins. Enjoy.

Right.

In a pan over low heat I melted a bunch of butter.  More than one stick, to be vague about it.   Along with all that golden liquid fat went the thinly sliced onion, which I sweated until it was soft, sweet and clear.

Meanwhile my wife rubbed roughly three tablespoons of butter onto the insides of a deep, oven-proof pan. Oh, my poor cardiovascular system!

Into that pan went a layer of the sliced turnips followed by the now softened onions and a little salt and pepper.

On top of that went another layer of turnip slices, more onions, and more seasoning.

We kept layering the turnip and onion until both amounts were exhausted.  I poured the butter left over from sweating the onion on top.   Waste nothing!

The pan went into a hot oven for an hour, covered with foil to keep the moisture in.   When the timer started dinging, I checked in on the turnip mound we had constructed only to find that it needed more time.

The pan went back into the oven for an extra 15 minutes. A quick check and back in it went. We kept checking for another 45 minutes until finally the turnip bake was nice and brown as you can see above.

A hearty slice of the finished product. I believe that this is a great side dish for more than just roast lamb. The slightly woody, bitter nature of the turnip is significantly diminished with the sweetness of the softened onions and all the soaked up butter, meaning that paring with pretty much any protein is simple.

Two years ago I told myself to start making more turnip dishes. This amazing recipe only serves as a reminder that when cooked right, turnips sure are delicious (though I’m sure all that butter didn’t hurt, either).

One down, forty nine to go.