Lamb's sweetbreads actually translate as a lamb's most delicate parts: an audacious thing to serve for four people you have never met, but nonetheless something Suzanne Green, from Caerphilly, chose to serve in the first episode of the Cardiff leg of Come Dine with Me.
1. Soak the sweetbreads in water for about an hour. Preheat oven to 180°C. Remove bones from lamb and cut into 5 fillets. Brown the bones in the oven to make stock which will be used later. When brown, simmer in 1½ pints of water with chopped celery, carrot and chopped onion for about 1½ hours. You may need to add a touch of arrowroot to thicken.
2. Roll out puff pastry until ¼ of an inch thick, and cut into five 2" x 2" pillows, score the top and bake until risen. Remove from oven and leave to cool.
3. Drain sweetbreads then trim away any membrane. Put them in a pan with water, 1 tablespoon of white wine vinegar and pepper. Bring to the boil for a minute, then leave to cool in the liquid.
4. Seal lamb fillets on a pan with hot oil and a knob of butter until browned, finish off in the oven for 5 minutes before serving. Wilt spinach in a pan with a knob of butter, and season to taste.
5. Using the pan that the lamb was sealed in add ½ finely chopped onion and fry off until brown. De-glaze the pan with the port, reduce by half then add the stock you made earlier.
6. Finely chop 2 cloves of garlic, and 5 sprigs of rosemary, and sweat in a pan, but don't brown. Add ½ glass of white wine, reduce and add a dash of double cream. Dice up the blanched sweetbreads, add to the sauce, and reduce. Season to taste and leave to rest.
7. Remove lamb from oven and slice each fillet and place on top of the spinach. Remove the onions from the port sauce with a sieve and drizzle sauce around the spinach. Serve the sweetbreads in the pastry baskets and drizzle the cream sauce out of the basket. Serve with blanched asparagus and French beans tossed in butter.
From ‘Rick Stein's Food Heroes: Another Helping’, BBC Books, 2004
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