Sweetbread
type of offal
Sweetbread is a culinary name for the thymus or pancreas, typically from calf or lamb. Sweetbreads have a rich, slightly gamey flavour and a tender, succulent texture. They are often served as an appetizer or a main course and can be accompanied by a variety of sauces and side dishes. The etymology of the name is unclear.
Description
Sweetbread is a culinary name for the thymus (also called throat, gullet, or neck sweetbread) or pancreas (also called stomach, belly or heart sweetbread), typically from calf (French: ris de veau) or lamb (ris d'agneau).
The "heart" sweetbreads are more spherical, while the "throat" sweetbreads are more cylindrical. As the thymus is replaced by fibrous tissue in older animals, only pancreatic sweetbreads come from beef and pork. Like other edible non-muscle from animal carcasses, sweetbreads may be categorized as offal, "fancy meat", or "variety meat". Various other glands used as food may also sometimes be called "sweetbreads", including the parotid gland ("cheek" or "ear" sweetbread) and the sublingual glands ("tongue" sweetbreads or "throat bread"), as well as ovary and testicles.
Use
Sweetbreads are often served as an appetizer or a main course and can be accompanied by a variety of sauces and side dishes.
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This entry incorporates text from “Sweetbread” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.