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Stuffed Sweetbreads

Stuffed sweetbreads baked with bread crumbs, nuts, mushrooms, cream, butter, and wine, served on toast with cress.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Mushroom and white wine are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,765 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity. The science ↓

Stuffed Sweetbreads

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Parboil, trim, and peel the sweetbreads.

  2. Stuff the sweetbreads with bread crumbs, chopped nuts, chopped mushrooms, cream, and melted butter.

  3. Place the stuffed sweetbreads in a shallow baking pan.

  4. Season with pepper, coarse sea salt, and a few pieces of butter.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake at 400°F (200°C).

  2. Baste with white wine mixed with a little melted currant jelly.

  3. Serve the sweetbreads on toast rounds.

  4. Garnish with cress.

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. Mushroom + white winetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,765 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity).

  2. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  3. Mushroom + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

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

  4. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

What each ingredient does

Sweetbreads
Main protein; tender, delicate meat that is firmed and browned by the oven heat.
Bread crumbs
Absorb the cream and butter inside the stuffing, keeping the filling moist.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness to the stuffing, keeping it soft during baking.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and promotes browning on the sweetbreads' surface.
White wine
Adds acidity to the basting liquid, balancing the sweetness of the currant jelly.
Currant jelly
Adds sweetness and gloss to the basting liquid, helping the surface brown.

The step that matters

Baste with white wine and currant jelly. Sugars in the jelly darken quickly in the oven, so the glaze can scorch if the heat is too high or the pan is left unattended. Basting at intervals builds an even, glossy coating while the interior cooks through.

Swap the nuts

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, mushroom, cream, butter, pepper, white wine, currant):

  1. Peasfits better
  2. Chestnutfits better
  3. Beansfits better
  4. Nutsthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, mushroom, cream, butter, pepper, white wine, currant. 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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