Greetings my beautiful lovelies. Its Emmy. Welcome back. Today, I'm gonna be cooking up some testicles.
Yes, testicles -- you know, reproductive organs that are located inside of a scrotum,
you know hanging down below. Yes. I'm gonna be cooking those today.
They're also known as Rocky Mountain Oysters; Prairie oysters; and they are testicles -- oftentimes
they are calf testicles, or bull testicles -- and they are a product of cattle ranching.
So cattle ranchers, come springtime, have to castrate many of their male
calves -- for a number of reasons. Number one: to control breeding; number two: to make them more docile. So the calves
which are calves NOW, but will grow into full-grown bulls if they are not castrated. This also reduces their aggression.
So once the calves have been castrated they become steer: they are sterile and they are not able to breed.
Apparently this process also has them build more skeletal muscle faster
so there are many reasons that ranchers want to do this and as a byproduct of this whole procedure you get a whole bucket of
little testicles that look kind of like oysters --
particularly if you get calf oysters. They're much smaller than the ones I have today. Mine are bull
testicles, but the calf ones are, as I've seen, are probably about three inches long. The ones that I have are much larger.
Check it out!
Oh my gosh!
So I ordered these online and they were overnighted...
So these were $19.99 a pound, and I believe that's the reason why this one is cut to make this exactly a pound which is
disappointing -- I really would have liked to have two whole testicles, but alas...
At least I have one. And shipping was about the same price. So these were about almost $50.
I think you can get them a lot more inexpensively if you get them directly from your butcher.
But I wasn't able to find them.
So here is the bull testicle.
And it feels a lot like a very cold kind of more firm water balloon.
But this still does have a membrane on here that we need to remove before we can prepare these.
So I have heard about Rocky Mountain Oysters quite a while ago;
but I had my first kind of real-life experience when I lived in Montana --
I lived in Missoula -- and just outside of Missoula in Clinton,
Montana was an annual festival called the Testicle Festival also known as the Testy Fest.
It has been since canceled. It was going on for thirty-five years this last year. It was canceled due to some accidents and
actually some deaths -- it was basically an excuse for a bunch of debauchery: lots of wet t-shirt contests; and lots of drinking alcohol;
motorcycles; so just pretty good recipe for a disaster Chuck Paulachuck (Palahniuk) -- I can never pronounce his last name -- wrote a really great
essay about it and I'll put a link to that essay (if I can find it) down below.
So they did serve lots of Rocky Mountain Oysters at the Testy Fest.
And so yeah, I find it kind of interesting that I am now in Rhode Island, and I'm cooking up some testicles.
I probably should have been doing that in Montana.
At any rate... So if you're at all squeamish about offal and little squelchy bits,
you might want to skip ahead to the other part of the video. Okay, cuz it's going to get a little bit graphic here.
This membrane here we want to remove.
So, while researching this recipe, I saw that there were a couple different techniques in terms of preparation:
Some people peel this membrane while the testicle is raw; others poach it and find that easier to remove the skin.
Others put it in the freezer and peel it off.
I'm just gonna go ahead and peel it off, particularly since mine are already kind of sliced.
Did you know the word testicle comes from the Latin for testes.
and it actually means witness? And back in the day, when you were swearing
something to an oath, you put one of your hands over your...
testicles as a means of saying you were telling the truth.
Isn't that interesting? I don't know quite how that would work if you're a female, but
apparently that's what the men did.
Once you get kind of below there, it kind of comes off pretty easily. Just kind of peel it off.
So, (I'm) trying to be gentle but firm
because we do want to remove this but we don't want to... there it is!
Very, very, very, very soft. And a beautiful little bean of...
testicle.
Now that we have our testicles peeled, we're going to slice them.
Now I've seen them cut in a couple different ways: some people like to make them more like little
nuggets; and some people like to slice them.
So I'm gonna do both just to see if there's a difference in texture, and if I prefer one or the other.
So I'm going to take this one and cut this one into kind of bite-sized nuggets.
Ooh, there's actually more resistance to them than I thought. I thought they were just gonna be kind of like
oozy and just really soft to...easy to cut. They're actually a little bit more
rubbery
Apparently the Romans used to eat these for aphrodisiac qualities;
more stamina and such -- but apparently there is no benefit when you consume these.
There's no added testosterone --
none of that! Just added calories and cholesterol.
These ones I'm going to cut into slices.
We're gonna season them with a good amount of salt
freshly cracked black pepper
And I'm gonna add some white pepper too because I like white pepper
Egg wash and leaves couple eggs these our own chick eating eggs. Our chickens are giving us beautiful eggs
We are averaging about three eggs a day. We have five chickens
They're wonderful. If any of you are considering raising chickens for eggs. I absolutely recommend it. They're so much fun
It's relatively easy and they're just a delight and you get beautiful eggs and then add a splash of milk to the egg wash
Again salt pepper
Incidentally if you have chickens, you don't need a rooster to have eggs by the way in fact
If you have a rooster, you're gonna have fertilized eggs, meaning those eggs could potentially turn into chickens, but chickens lay eggs
Whether or not there's a rooster around those eggs just won't be fertilized. So therefore they won't turn into baby chickens
They'll just be eggs sterile eggs
and that's what we've been eating sterile eggs that are delicious and now I've got some
All-purpose flour here and I'm gonna season this up as well good amount of salt pepper
White pepper garlic powder onion powder
And I'm gonna add some paprika
Toss this together
So this is just gonna be a classic little breading station so we're gonna try to do is keep one hand put the eggs
I'm going to keep one hand with the flour. Hopefully right drop them into the flour first
Then drop them into the egg
That initial little dip
encourages the egg wash to stick better to the
Meat and then I'm going to take that and drop them into the flour again
We're going to do this twice, we have a nice thick crust
This is their second it
And then it's back into the flower
for their final dipping
Now I have all my little testicle bits all
Dredged and battered we are ready to fry
I've got a big cast-iron skillet here with about an inch of oil in here
And I've got it heated up to about 350 degrees
You want it cracking hot when we deep-fry it and then I've got a tray here
Which I've got a brown paper bag on the bottom and a rack on top so I can drain by finished
Rocky Mountain Oysters right there
It's a good sizzle there
So do a few of the thin ones and then I'll do Nuggets as well
Okay, I don't want to put too many in there
I don't want to crowd the pan adding the cold meat to the hot oil already reduces the temperature of the oil
So putting more and more and more and more and more will reduce the temperature so much that we won't get a good crispy crust
Here are my beautiful Rocky Mountain Oysters, and they turned out beautifully it was dish up a couple on a plate here
I want the really extra crispy ones. So just like chicken nuggets
I think these can be dipped up with any kind of sauce you like: ketchup, barbecue sauce, horseradish, whatever.
I'm gonna try it one straight up first and see what it's like. All right, here we go. Itadakimasu!
That's pretty stinking good!
The texture is a little bit different than I thought it'd be...
Because you're holding the testicle in your hand -- you think it's gonna be really soft and unctuous and creamy
but actually has a little bit more texture
and resilience than I thought.
The outside is just like a crispy fried chicken exterior: nice and crunchy and well-seasoned.
So you can get an idea of what the consistency is like I'm gonna tear one of these open.
And can you see how it has a little bit of rubberiness to it?
See, it has a little bit of a stretch?
Look at that!
And it actually has a grain to it, but very much like the serrations that you would find in muscle tissue.
Let's try it without the batter and see hat it's like.
It has a very light, meaty flavor;
kind of akin to chicken maybe;
But it has much more of a rubbery texture -- which I find surprising
because in its raw state it was so soft. It kind of reminds me of slightly overcooked chicken.
Mm-hmm. But besides the breading, the actual testicle doesn't have much flavor in and of itself,
so it's really dependent on how well seasoned the crust is.
Deep-frying. It's one of those wonderful things. If you ever questioned the palatability of anything, deep-fry it and then make a decision, right?
Mm-hmm. So they're pretty tasty because it's a deep-fried meat product, but
the texture and flavor of the testicles themselves aren't exactly outstanding either. I wouldn't go out searching for
testicles because I really needed that -- as opposed to a really good fried chicken. I would seek out a really good fried chicken.
Let's have it with a little bit of ketchup.
Mm. Mm-hmm.
I don't know why I put the Tabasco on that plate. I never do it that way, but it's weird. Let's have it with Tabasco.
Mmm!
Tabasco is SO good. It has such a great smokiness to it...
a good amount of heat; and that little zingy, vinegary bite to it too. Love Tabasco. It goes really well with Tabasco
Delicious. I think I actually prefer the nuggety version just a little bit more: you get that meatier texture without feeling so rubbery.
And by the way, these are nothing like oysters that come out of the ocean -- nothing whatsoever!
If you've had a po-boy from Louisiana, these might look superficially similar, but they taste nothing at all similar.
Oysters are absolutely wonderful. These are pretty good too. But oysters are absolutely phenomenal and they have a completely different
texture: much softer, unctuous, creamy,
metallic...
ocean-y... I love oysters! And I particularly love a good po-boy sandwich
Alrighty, so there you have it! Rocky Mountain Oysters!
Now you know how to prepare them for yourself. If you happen to see Rocky Mountain Oysters at your butchers,
you know, pick up a couple and try out the recipe for yourself. All right. Thank you guys so much for watching!
I hope you guys enjoyed that one. I hope you guys learned something. Please share this video with your friends.
Follow me on social media; like and subscribe; and I shall see you in the next one!
Toodaloo. Take care. Bye!
Oh, it's so hot in here.
