Why Sydney’s gutsiest diners love brains, kidneys and tongues
PIGS head hash brown and blood sausage for breakfast and pasta with braised ox tongue for lunch. Offal has outgrown its ick-factor as Sydney chefs find delicious new ways to serve it.
GETTING to the guts of a good dish is a matter of making it tasty, which is why brains, tongue, liver, heart and sweetbreads are popping up on menus all over Sydney.
Yes, offal has outgrown its ick-factor as chefs find new and delicious ways to serve it to adventurous diners.
Celebrity chef Darren Robertson, best known as one of the original Three Blue Ducks, offers offal dishes at his recently opened Rocker in Bondi. Think pigs head hash brown and blood sausage for breakfast and pasta with braised ox tongue for lunch or dinner.
Robertson admits diners can find offal challenging.
“If something is tasty it’s tasty. We’re trying to get the public to try this stuff,” he says. “Generally liver is an easy one to start with because people know and like pate. Some are a bit challenged by sweetbreads and duck hearts, so we have about five or six portions as specials and see if it sells.
“If sweetbreads sell well and we get good feedback, then it will go on the (regular) menu.”
Presentation is key.
“Anything in its raw form is a bit off-putting. It can’t just be a big tongue or brain on the plate. It needs to be used in an accessible way,” Robertson says. “We braise ox tongue and then slice it through pasta. It tastes like really succulent, delicate meat.
“Tripe is something people are a bit perplexed by, but it’s just how you treat it. We’d brine it, slice it paper thin, dust it with flour and deep fry it until it’s thin and crispy.”
Robertson believes most diners are turned off by the idea, rather than the taste, of offal.
“People have a preconceived idea of what they think it is going to taste like,” he says.
“Perhaps they had a bad experience. If the first oyster you ever tried was warm, you’d probably never go back there.
“It’s mysterious and unfamiliar, which is why people are more inclined to choose the chicken breast or lamb chop.”
But he believes diners have come a long way in a decade.
“With (Three Blue) Ducks, about nine years ago we had a blood sausage dish on for breakfast — blood sausage, scrambled eggs, red currant and cucumber yoghurt — and no one bought it,” he says.
“We had to give slices away to people to get them to try it. They loved it and it stayed on the menu for six years because people would come back for that.”
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Originally published as Why Sydney’s gutsiest diners love brains, kidneys and tongues