Lamb brain preparation tips

On Saturday I was at the grocery store with a friend, and we found this in the meat section.



It's lamb brain. (Where is the vomiting smiley when you need it?) That brought up the question who would eat that? And how? Do you fry it? Bake it? Chop it up or keep it's original brain shape? Is it for humans even? Or dogs or cats? Since some people here do seem to possess some culinary skills, I thought I'd ask. Not that I plan on eating it, just curious.

Yum yum, CJD in celo packaging. Nice.

To be found at Carrefour at las Ramblas in Barcelona. Did Spain ever have any cases of CJD? In lambs?

I used to dissect these by the dozen in university. They were pretty gross.

scrapie. present in sheep since the 18th century. strangly enough, despite it being a transmissible spongiform encephalopathingamyjig just like BSE no-one has linked it to variant-CJD yet. mmmm.

ER, I found them pretty gross in the grocery store. But I didn't know what kind of brain it was so I took a picture to look up the word later (and then thought of posting about it on TT to find out what they're for). Why would they sell them at a grocery store if they're for dissecting though? I think they are intended to be eaten somehow.
I had to dissect a fish once, I found that pretty disgusting, too. Maybe that's why I don't eat fish unless it is shaped like fish fingers, and only about once a year if at all.

@ OG, thanks. So do you think any human would eat a lamb's brain then?

Edit: I suppose some humans would (see Cartooncat's post).

My Mum used to make a potted meat thing in aspic using them.

Probably explains a lot...

I'm sure those are for eating, no idea by who though.

Ours were soaked in formaldehyde.

yup, the Norwegians have a dish using sheep brains.

Gordon Ramsay cooking his own lamb brain in his house ...

Almost every culture has a recipe or two for brains, often marinated or cooked in milk. Otherwise they get/got used for tanning smaller animal hides. Whether or not they're a cvector for disease transmission is still being debated. Brains are extremely high in cholesterol and like fois gras (but moreso), you can't eat that much in a single sitting.

When we cook rabbit Belgian-style, the head is in the pot for flavour and I usually eat from that as well: bunny brain is small but tasty.

woof.

had it once without knowing! wasn't that bad!

From Wikipedia:


But things like tripe and sweetbreads used to be commonplace in the UK and many other countries, too.

In NZ as a baby I was fed pureed cooked lambs brains. They were supposed to be good for you!

I'm pretty certain the Weisses Bräuhaus in Tal do brains, they certainly do meals made out of just about every part of the animal.

read anything Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall has written and you'll see that some people do, in fact, eat brains (and lots of other "yucky" bits of animals)

In the olden days every little bit of edible stuff was used for something - brains, trotters, ears and what have you. Nowadays we just want to eat fillet.

Speak for yourself, I love a bit of liver.

What's this "we" shit? You can't make a haggis with a fucking filet, nor a stew, nor pig's ear salad, not even a decent fucking bowl of chili. You don't like offal and organs? Fine, that's your call, but don't presume to speak for the rest of us.

woof.

Not true.
Mr.Moonboot eats everything...am sure he'd be interested in these lambs' brains if anyone has any good recipes...
(not sure I could eat them mind... )

No need to become so upset and defensive. I didn't say anything against haggis or offal or whatever. What i was saying is that a lot of people nowadays (not you of course) don't know anymore how to use up all parts and just want the best cuts of meat. I didn't say that stuff is inedible, did I? I for one actually eat almost everything but a lot of other people don't.

I ate some cow brain once and it tasted like tofu.

osmachar, I'll thank you to quit deflating my beautiful rants with your odd mix of sense and sensibility.

Now, where do you stand on lamb/sheep heads which are halved, singed and cooked? It's called svið and is available in Iceland at almost any time of year though it's most common in January and February.

woof.

Well, personally, I'd only eat lamb brains in Germany if they had a decent stiftungwarenfuckingjoke rating, or maybe one of those absolutely hilarious "garantiert zart" stickers on it. Always good to be assured that what you are buying is going to be fantastic. Hmmmmf. Snnnnck. HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!

If one did not have the luxury of online translation websites, dictionaries and wotnot, and was merely learning krout by associating words with experience, they would no doubt assume that "zart" meant "leathery", "shit" or "sub quality". Go Tenglemann!

But anyway. If you wanna cook brains, go by the proper rules of food - offal NEEDS to be super fresh, or it is crap. Look to France for decent brain recipes, they are pretty good at cooking things. If you are totally put off by the idea of brain, disguise it - breading and deep frying works well with alot of offal, and you won't see it as brains - just a tasty deep fried beer-snack.

Cooking cheaper, or less desirable cuts of meat is actually often alot more fun - if you're into cooking that is. When I first arrived in Singapore, I noticed taht chicken breast meat was cheaper per kilo than wings. Now, I know alot of people love wings, but I only really use them for stock myself - but there is no doubt that chicken breast has almost zero chicken flavour compared to wings. I have developed quite a dislike for chicken breast over the years - born from living in England no doubt - chicken breast is nowadays (in England) no more than a chunk of flavourless protein. It is a bit like a meat eaters version of tofu in fact. "Chicken Tonight" jars of sauce is a great indicator of this - its very existence implies that chicken is flavourless crap which needs a ridiculously overly flavoured sauce. Simply a protein that happens to be nice and easy to cut into bite sized chunks. No thought of the flavour of chicken, or what may or may not compliment it well, nope, just a shitty, overly salted, overly sugared e-number fest of shite.
I'm not going to encourage people to eat brains really - but cheaper cuts of meat are normally a biut more challenging, and often more flavoursome. IT is worth a go to experiment - and as you may have gathered, my idea of experimenting with food is NOT to simply dump some chicken breasts in a pan with whatever the fuck other ingredients you have to hand. That is simply student cooking, and totally rubbish.

So far I'm with you, but then you write...

You pussy motherfucker.


Even worse, you write

So you're in favour of more challenging cooking on a site where most people need to ask directions for cooking spaghetti, discourage people from actually cooking something challenging like the cholesterol bomb that brains are, then bitch about one of the few things people here manage to be able to feed their friends (chicken tit w/ sauce from a jar) without offering any alternative.

Jeebus wept! Give me your knives; you clearly have no use for them. A spork should be sufficient. I'll even throw a couple Pot Noodles your way since that seems to be the most challenging thing you're willing to cook these days.

woof.

Hey, come on...

Ranting is ok, but... to threaten to use a pot noodle on another human being..

Thats just going to far man, way too far