Sous Vide Beef Tenderloin with Veal Sweetbreads, Caramelized Onion Arancini, Vegetable Ragout

The beef tenderloin was seasoned with kosher salt and ground black pepper before being bagged with whole butter, sliced shallot, smashed garlic cloves, rosemary and thyme. It was cooked for around an hour and a half at 60 degrees celcius in the immersion circulator. Once it came out, it was chilled in an ice bath and held for service. When it was time to reheat, it was taken out of the packaging and seared in a sauté pan before being quickly finished in the oven. After resting for about ten minutes under a heat lamp so the internal juices could re-distribute, it was sliced and finished with coarse sea salt.

Veal sweetbreads are a delicacy that are rarely seen on menus these days. Sweetbreads are the thymus gland of the cow, found both in the neck and near the heart. Typically the one that is used in the kitchen is the one in the neck, which tends to be more tender and flavorful.

Preparing sweetbreads is a process which requires some planning, as it can take several days to reach the end result. The first step is to soak the organ in whole milk overnight, which removes all of the blood and impurities, leaving you with a much more appealing product to work with. Next, sweetbreads are poached in a court bouillion, a short stock, comprised of water, onions, celery, carrots, thyme, garlic, white wine, kosher salt and crushed white peppercorns. The sweetbreads are poached lightly until fully cooked, then chilled in an ice bath.

After the sweetbreads are fully cooked and chilled, the outer membrane can be removed with the aid of a paring knife and some patience. Then they should be stored overnight in a pan with another pan on top of them, loaded with something heavy such as bricks, to press the product so they become firm.

After they are pressed, they can be sliced and sautéed. I like to bread them with Wondra, a pregelantinized wheat flour that can be found in any supermarket. Wondra is a low-protein flour that browns quickly and leaves a phenomenal crust.