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To Stew Sweet Breads in Cream

A creamy stew of boiled sweetbreads simmered in butter, flour, milk, and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

To Stew Sweet Breads in Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. In a thick saucepan, melt the butter over medium heat.

  2. Stir in the flour until smoothly blended.

  3. Gradually add the hot milk and cream, stirring until you have a smooth sauce.

Finish and serve

  1. Add the boiled sweetbreads and heat through.

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

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

  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. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Milk + creamtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29,399 recipes

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

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

Butter
Enriches the sauce and carries flavour while it melts into the base.
Flour
Thickens the milk and cream into a smooth sauce that holds the sweetbreads.
Milk
Forms the liquid body of the sauce, giving it a mild, creamy base.
Cream
Adds richness and body to the sauce, making it smoother and silkier.
Sweetbreads
Provide the main meat, tender after boiling, and are heated through in the sauce.

The step that matters

Adding the hot milk and cream gradually. Flour thickens smoothly only when liquid is added slowly and stirred constantly. Adding it all at once can trap lumps of flour that stay in the sauce.

“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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