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Sweetbreads and Mushrooms

A dish of sweetbreads sautéed with mushrooms in a creamy sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and mushroom are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 12,525 recipes. Both carry trans-2-decenal, which smells waxy, orange. The science ↓

Sweetbreads and Mushrooms

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Parboil the sweetbreads, remove all strings and fibers, and cut each into two pieces.

Cook and serve

  1. Heat the butter in a pan and add the sweetbreads.

  2. Sauté quickly, turning them once.

  3. Sprinkle with salt and place on a hot dish with the mushrooms.

  4. Add the mushrooms to the pan, then pour in the cream.

  5. Thicken the mixture quickly with the flour, stirring until it bubbles and is smooth.

  6. Remove from heat and pour over the sweetbreads on the hot dish.

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

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

  2. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Mushroom + creamtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,500 recipes

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

  5. Mushroom + flourtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,253 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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
Provide the tender, delicate meat that forms the body of the dish.
Butter
Adds fat for sautéing, giving browning and a rich flavor to the sweetbreads.
Mushrooms
Contribute earthy flavor and a soft, moist texture to the sauce.
Cream
Adds richness and moisture, forming the body of the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the cream and mushroom mixture into a smooth sauce.

The step that matters

Thicken the mixture quickly with the flour. Flour must be stirred in smoothly and cooked until the mixture bubbles; otherwise it clumps and tastes raw. Cooking the starch activates its thickening power, so the sauce turns smooth and glossy rather than pasty.

“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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