This dish is a play on one of my favorite dishes, which is mochiko chicken with a Mexican mole. In this case, I wanted to challenge myself here, by using sweetbreads. For those unfamiliar with them, a sweetbread is a kind of offal, or organ meat. Specifically, it is the thymus gland or pancreas from either a cow or sheep. The thymus gland kind of looks like a brain, in that it is a soft, pink, fleshy blob. However, the cool thing about this ingredient is that it has a super soft texture, which lends itself well to being breaded, fried, and eaten like a fancy chicken nugget. So that is what we’re doing here today with it. Instead of doing mochiko, I’m using quinoa flour, because I have a 10 pound bag of quinoa that I needed to use, and I figured, why not grind the quinoa into a powder, and use that in the dish? In terms of how I cooked the sweetbreads, instead of deep frying them, I went with air frying and quinoa flour, because I was trying to be just slightly healthier. In the breading, I used turmeric powder, to give the illusion of a golden-brown fry, while also being an ingredient that promotes a stronger immune system, as well as cumin, which has that more traditional Latin flavor profile to tie in with the mole that I am serving the sweetbreads with. Admittedly I was trying to make tortillas out of the quinoa flour to go with the dish, but they weren’t really working out, so I went with a cracker instead, just to add more texture and a little height. I also garnished the dish with a charred scallion, which is a typical accompaniment with a lot of Mexican street food dishes.

For the sweetbreads themselves, there is quite a bit of prep that goes into them. The first step is soaking them in either water, or in this case, I made my own buttermilk-brine, using milk and vinegar to make a buttermilk, and adding soy sauce to that to form a brine. You want to soak the sweetbreads for at least 2 hours, which will pull out the gross, organ-y flavors. Using the buttermilk-soy brine works even better for this, since the buttermilk not only pulls out those gross flavors, but also tenderizes the sweetbreads, while the soy will season the sweetbreads from the inside. After soaking, then you need to blanch and shock(quickly boil, then submerge in either ice or cold water) the sweetbreads, which will cause the membrane around them to firm up so that you can remove that, since it tastes like wet paper towels. From there, you then have to press the sweetbreads between two plates, and refrigerate that for at least another 2 hours, which pulls out any excess water. That is important since we are breading these sweetbreads, and any excess water will cause the breading to go soggy. That, and the water in the sweetbreads causes them to have a spongy texture, rather than a springy, chicken nugget-like one. After all of that work, you can then dredge, bread, and air-fry them into a delicious chicken nugget alternative!

With the other components, the tuile was supposed to be a tortilla, made with quinoa, but it’s a cracker, and that’s what I’m going with. I tried to knead a lot of oil and water into the quinoa to give it a more pliable consistency, but it cooked off into a tuile, similar to a pane carasau, which is a Sardinian flatbread-cracker that I personally love eating with dips and sauces, making it a similar-enough vessel in place of a tortilla that can be used to add some height and texture to the dish. The mole has lots of spices and aromatics in it too, but I love the contrast of that against the milky soft sweetbreads. I went with a mole colorado, which is made with plantains as a thickener, because it has this luscious, velvety, and almost sweet taste to it, which pairs beautifully with poultry. Even though sweetbreads are technically beef/veal, they taste like a chicken nugget in this case, so it actually does work nicely together. This dish was sorely lacking a vibrant color, since everything was super earthy-toned, and I was too lazy to go buy microherbs, however, I did have scallions lying around from when I visited a farm, so I figured, why not char those, and use them as a garnish instead? The charred scallion adds a juicy sweetness that adds a fresh-er element to the dish, and some much needed brightness.

For the sweetbreads:
1 cup milk
2 tbsp vinegar or lime
2 tsp soy sauce
1/2 pound veal sweetbreads
ice
1 egg
1/2 cup finely ground quinoa
a pinch of salt
1/4 tsp turmeric powder
1/4 tsp cumin

In a bowl, mix together the milk, vinegar, and soy sauce. Submerge the sweetbreads in the liquid, and refrigerate them for 2-3 hours. Then bring a pot of water to a boil, and blanch the sweetbreads for 30 seconds, before placing in ice water. Carefully peel the outer skin/membrane off the sweetbreads, and then press the sweetbreads between two paper towels, and then two sheet trays, weighing down the top sheet tray. Allow the sweetbreads to sit like that, refrigerated, for another 2-3 hours. This will help remove any excess liquid.

In a bowl, beat one egg. Mix together the quinoa powder, salt, turmeric powder, and cumin. Cut the sweetbreads into chicken thigh-sized portions, and dredge them in the egg, then the seasoned mochiko. Roast the sweetbreads in the air fryer at 400 degrees F for 10 minutes, then at 350 degrees F for another 10 minutes.

For the mole colorado:
2 dried pasilla chilies, pitted and seeded
1 dried ancho chili, pitted and seeded
1 dried guajillo chili, pitted and seeded
1/4 cup diced plantain
1/4 cup raisins
1/4 cup onion, sliced
2 cloves of garlic, peeled
1/4 cup breadcrumbs
1/4 cup roasted peanuts
1/4 tspn ground cloves
1/4 tspn ground cinnamon
1 tspn dried Mexican oregano
1 tspn dried thyme
2 tbsp sesame seeds
2 tbsp tomato paste
1/2 cup chicken stock
1 tbsp granulated sugar
2 tbsp dark chocolate

Using the oil from the deep fry, flash fry basically every ingredient besides the cloves, cinnamon, oregano, thyme, sesame, tomato paste, chicken stock, sugar, and dark chocolate, for 5-10 seconds. Puree everything together in a blender, then pass through a sieve. Allow the sauce to reduce on low heat for at least 10 minutes, preferably in a large and flat pan so that the entire mole could be heated through quickly. Make sure to stir the mole at least every 3 minutes as to prevent it from burning or going bitter! The final product should be velvety, and thick enough to coat the back of your spoon with.

For the quinoa cracker:
1/2 cup quinoa flour
1g xanthan gum
a pinch of salt
2 tbsp canola oil
1/4 cup hot water

In a bowl, mix everything together into a dough. Roll the dough out as thinly as possible, and bake at 500 degrees F for 10 minutes. Crack into smaller pieces.

To garnish:
Scallions
Olive oil
Salt

Toss the scallions with olive oil and salt. Sear in a pan until the edges start to char.