Maintaining a completely bangin’ freezer full of goodies you can pull and experiment with when the mood strikes is challenging when you move every two years (or in this case, 1.5 yrs).

Peels balls and brains

So we have freezer treat time before the movers come, and this time around we had some especially delish items du jour to try out from the lamb we broke down and the trip to St. Louis-

Pig brains, lamb balls, and pig tails.

I will admit this was our first time cooking either testicles or pig tails, and found both to be shockingly easy and delightful.

With the balls, there is a thick membrane on the outside that you must peel off before preparing.  I know, sounds gross, but the product inside is tender and easy to work with (and not the veiny squirty Gusher fruit snack type thing you’re envisioning right now).  It’s more like the spongy pork filling inside dumplings; smooth and solid.

We ended up frying some with a panko breading and doing a sauté on the rest.

Absolutely delicious.  Like hands-down shockingly delicious.

The texture was firm, the flavor was full but not minerally.  We both commented how we could easily prepare these and not tell people what they were and no one would know.

Balls two ways.

The piggie tails we poached and roasted.  And then someone had the bright idea to put them under the broiler to put a finishing touch on the crispiness…..  which would have worked if we’d poked them, but instead resulted in exploding pig tails in our oven.

Ha!  But besides a friggin heart attack from the exploding fat mortar the extra fat added to their crispiness and they were delightful snackie treats.

The brains we just did in a traditional way and poached in seasoned milk then panko crusted and fan fried.

Pig tails

Cliche I know, but they were still tasty.  We didn’t have any eggs to do brains and eggs- something I’ve always wanted to try but just haven’t been in the position to do so.

So you know.  Yummy drool.