Calves' offal and pea salad

Serves 4 as a starter

Arrange on serving plates with the offal arranged in among the leaves and scatter the chives on top (Jason Lowe)

This salad makes good use of both peas and their tendrils or shoots. If you can find British calves' offal, then all the better – but lambs' offal will create an equally delicious salad.

120-150g calves' sweetbreads
120-150g calves' liver
120-150g calves' kidney
1tbsp flour
A couple of good knobs of butter
A couple of handfuls of pea shoots, plus some other small salad leaves if you wish
100g cooked peas
6-8 mangetouts, finely shredded
A few chives, cut into 3-4cm lengths
Salt and freshly ground black pepper

For the dressing

1tbsp good quality white wine or cider vinegar
1tsp caster sugar
1tsp Tewksbury or Dijon mustard
4tbsp rapeseed or olive oil
A handful of chopped mint

First make the dressing. Whisk all of the ingredients together and leave to infuse for an hour, then strain through a fine-meshed sieve.

Meanwhile, put the sweetbreads in a pan, cover them with salted water, bring to the boil and simmer for a couple of minutes; then drain them and leave to cool.

Cut the liver and kidney into bite-sized slices and cut the sweetbreads into bite-sized chunks.

Season the sweetbreads and lightly flour them, melt a knob of butter in a heavy frying pan, season and lightly flour the sweetbreads and cook in the butter on a medium heat, turning them as they are cooking, until they are crisp.

Remove from the pan and drain on some kitchen paper. Season the kidney and liver, add the rest of the butter to the pan and fry them for about 30-40 seconds on each side, keeping them nice and pink.

To serve, toss the pea shoots, peas and mangetouts in the dressing and season. Arrange on serving plates with the offal arranged in among the leaves and scatter the chives on top.