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Sweetbreads a LA Touraine

A French dish of sweetbreads cooked with peas, mushrooms, and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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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 skillet and sauté the sweetbreads with the onion and carrot until browned.

  3. Transfer the sweetbreads to a baking pan and add the sherry and stock.

  4. 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 and reheat, allowing excess water to evaporate.

  2. Season the peas with butter, pepper, and salt, then shape into nests on a platter.

  3. Arrange the sweetbreads in the pea nests.

Make the cream sauce

  1. In the same skillet, sauté the mushrooms in butter, then stir in the flour.

  2. Once combined, add the cream and the gravy from the sweetbreads, stirring until smooth.

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
Their delicate, tender texture is the centre of the dish once browned and cooked.
Butter
Adds fat for browning the sweetbreads and enriches the peas and mushrooms with flavour.
Flour
Thickens the mushroom mixture and the cream sauce so the gravy becomes smooth.
Thick cream
Adds richness and body to the sauce, making it smooth and velvety.
Mushrooms
Contribute earthy flavour and a meaty texture to the sauce.
Peas
Form the mashed base of the nests, giving the dish a sweet, green foundation.

The step that matters

Stirring the cream into the flour mixture. Adding cream and gravy to a flour-thickened pan can lump if the flour is not cooked briefly first and the liquid is added while stirring. Keep stirring to form a smooth, even sauce.

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.

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