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Sweet-bread Pie

A pie with sweetbreads stewed in gravy, covered in pastry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Sweet-bread Pie

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the filling

  1. Wash the sweetbreads in cold water.

  2. Season with pepper and coarse sea salt.

  3. Add butter, a little flour, and enough water to make gravy. Place over heat and let stew for 30 minutes.

Assemble the pie

  1. Butter a deep dish and line it with pie crust.

  2. Add the sweetbreads and gravy to the dish.

  3. Roll out the top crust and place it on the pie. Trim the edges with a sharp knife and make an opening in the center.

  4. Cut two strips of dough, twist them, and lay them across the opening. Place four leaves of dough opposite each other on top of the pie.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven until golden and serve hot.

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. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Pepper + flourtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Sweetbreads
Form the rich, tender meat filling at the heart of the pie.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the gravy taste full and savoury.
Flour
Thickens the gravy so it holds together rather than running out of the pie.
Pie crust
Forms the structure that holds the filling and browns in the oven.

The step that matters

Stewing the sweetbreads in gravy. Gentle stewing over low heat keeps the sweetbreads tender, while flour needs enough time and stirring to thicken the liquid smoothly without lumps.

“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.

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