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Stewed Sweetbreads

Stewed sweetbreads simmered in stock, finished with cream, egg yolk, lemon, and served with green peas.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and peas are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,005 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Stewed Sweetbreads

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the sweetbreads

  1. Soak the sweetbreads in cold water for 1 hour, changing the water twice.

  2. Boil the sweetbreads in water for 10 minutes until firm, then transfer to cold water.

  3. Place the sweetbreads in a stew pan and cover with stock; simmer for nearly 1 hour.

  4. Remove the sweetbreads and place them on a hot dish.

Make the sauce and serve

  1. Take the gravy off the heat, then gradually stir in the egg yolk and cream until thickened, but do not boil.

  2. Before serving, add the lemon juice to the sauce and pour it around the sweetbreads.

  3. Serve with a dish of green peas.

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. Lemon + peastop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,005 recipes

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

  2. Egg + lemontop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

  3. Egg + peastop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,065 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-octenal (fatty, green).

  4. Cream + eggtop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together42,166 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  5. Cream + peastop 29% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

Egg and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 44,316 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
Main protein; the body is firm and tender after boiling and simmering.
Egg yolk
Thickens the sauce as it heats gently, giving it a smooth, creamy body.
Cream
Adds richness and moisture, softening the sauce and smoothing its texture.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich cream and egg sauce.

The step that matters

Thickening the sauce without boiling. Egg yolk scrambles if it gets too hot, leaving the sauce grainy. Removing the pan from the heat before stirring in the yolk and cream lets it thicken gently and smoothly.

Swap the peas

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cream, egg, lemon):

  1. Pistachiofits better
  2. Almondfits better
  3. Walnutfits better
  4. Peasthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, egg, lemon. 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.

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