Offal Good™

Delicious Cocks combs

The mighty rooster and his bright red gelatinous crest.

The defination of a cockscombb from Larousse Gastronomique is as follows:
A cockscomb, cock’s-comb, or (less commonly) coxcomb is a fleshy growth, caruncle, or crest on the top of the head of many gallinaceous birds, notably turkeys, pheasants, and domestic chickens. It is generally larger on males than on females.
Rooster cockscombs are red, but in other species the color may vary from light grey to deep blue or red.

I have included 2 different dishes for the cocks combs as well as the basics on how to work with them.

These are the cocks combs before they have been braised..

All of these dishes are based on the basic technique of braising. First I blanch them in water to remove the impurities, then cover with chicken stock and whole aromatic vegetables and braise until tender.

These are the cooked cocks combs that have stored in there braising liquid over night. After this the cocks combs have endless possibilities. Here are a few dishes that we have done at the restaurant recently.

This dish is braised cocks combs with lobster mushrooms & carnaroli its on the menu now and is selling extremely well.

photo courtesy of Michael Harlan turkell

This dish is from our head to tail this year, it was the desert of candied cocks combs with rice pudding and cherries. The idea behind this was warm gummy bears in your pocket.

This just gives you a little taste of where you can go with cocks combs, now its time for you to get some and play around. If you want to get cockscombs you can order them thru D’artagnan.