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Sweet Breads Creamed

Creamed sweetbreads served in bread croustades.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Sweet Breads Creamed

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. Cook and blanch the sweetbreads.

  2. Cut the sweetbreads into pieces.

Make the sauce

  1. Melt the butter over medium heat in a saucepan.

  2. Stir in the flour to make a roux.

  3. Gradually add the milk, stirring until the sauce thickens.

  4. Season the sauce with parsley, cayenne pepper, and salt.

Make and serve

  1. Cut stale bread into cups or boxes for croustades.

  2. Fry the bread in butter or bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven until crisp.

  3. Pour the sweetbreads into the croustades and serve hot.

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. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  3. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  4. Milk + breadtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 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 (in the method)
Provide the tender, delicate meat that forms the body of the dish.
Butter
Enriches the sauce with fat and flavour and helps crisp the bread.
Flour
Thickens the milk into a smooth sauce when cooked as a roux.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the sauce, which thickens as it cooks.

The step that matters

Thickening the sauce. Flour must be cooked into the butter as a roux before the milk is added, otherwise it stays raw-tasting and lumpy. Add the milk gradually while stirring so the sauce thickens smoothly without lumps.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, flour, milk, pepper, bread):

  1. Nutmegfits about as well
  2. Cinnamonfits about as well
  3. Parsleythe original
  4. Sagefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, milk, pepper, bread. 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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