Skip to main content
Main

Sweetbreads a LA Touraine

Sweetbreads cooked with peas, mushrooms, and a creamy sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Sherry and mushroom are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,176 recipes. Both carry 2-methoxy-4-methylphenol, which smells smoky, clove. The science ↓

Sweetbreads a LA Touraine

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the sweetbreads

  1. Parboil the sweetbreads.

  2. Melt the butter in a pan.

  3. Sauté the sweetbreads with the onion and carrot until browned.

  4. Transfer the sweetbreads to a baking pan.

  5. Add the sherry and stock to the pan.

  6. Cook in a 350°F (175°C) oven for 30 minutes, basting often.

Make the pea nests

  1. Mash the cooked peas through a sieve.

  2. Reheat the mashed peas, allowing excess water to evaporate.

  3. Season the peas with butter, pepper, and salt.

  4. Shape the seasoned peas into nests on a platter.

  5. Arrange the sweetbreads in the pea nests.

Make the sauce and serve

  1. Sauté the mushrooms in butter in the same pan.

  2. Stir in the flour.

  3. Add the cream and the gravy from the sweetbreads. Mix well.

  4. Pour the sauce around the sweetbreads.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Sherry + mushroomtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,176 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-methylphenol (smoky, clove).

  2. Carrot + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Butter + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  5. Carrot + peastop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,994 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Sweetbreads
Tender, delicate meat that browns well and is the centrepiece of the dish.
Butter
Adds richness and flavour and browns the sweetbreads and mushrooms.
Flour
Thickens the pan juices and cream into a smooth sauce.
Cream
Adds fat and body, giving the sauce a rich, smooth texture.
Peas
Form the mashed base of the nests and give the dish its colour and sweetness.
Mushrooms
Add earthy flavour and savoury depth to the sauce.

The step that matters

Sauté the sweetbreads until browned. Browning builds flavour through the Maillard reaction, but the sweetbreads must be dry and not overcrowded in the pan. Otherwise they steam, stay pale, and lose flavour before the oven stage.

Swap the peas

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, onion, carrot, sherry, pepper, mushroom, flour):

  1. Beansfits better
  2. Chestnutfits better
  3. Sesamefits better
  4. Peasthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, onion, carrot, sherry, pepper, mushroom, flour. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

You might also like

Green PeasGreen Peas229 recipesCarrot SoupCarrot Soup134 recipesMushroom SoupMushroom Soup60 recipesGreen Peas SoupGreen Peas Soup35 recipes