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Stewed Sweetbreads

Stewed sweetbreads are tender sweetbreads simmered in wine and butter, finished with a brown butter and flour sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and white wine are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,083 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Stewed Sweetbreads

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the sweetbreads

  1. Parboil the sweetbreads in salted water until tender.

  2. Once cool, remove the skin and cut them in half.

  3. Season with pepper and salt, then coat with flour.

  4. Fry in a pan until light brown.

Stew and finish

  1. Stew in the reserved cooking liquid.

  2. Brown butter with flour in a separate pan.

  3. Add the brown butter and flour mixture to the stew along with more pepper, salt, and white wine.

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 + white winetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,083 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Pepper + white winetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,433 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

Flour and butter 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
Are the main protein, becoming tender when parboiled and then gently stewed.
Flour
Coats the sweetbreads for browning and, browned with butter, thickens the stewing liquid.
Butter
Adds richness and nutty flavour when browned, and carries fat into the sauce.
White wine
Adds acidity and aroma that brighten the rich stew.

The step that matters

Frying the floured sweetbreads until light brown. Flour browns through the Maillard reaction, adding colour and savoury flavour. Frying too hot or too long can scorch the flour before the centre heats through, leaving a bitter taste.

“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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