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And Potato Balls

Bread loaf baked, sweetbreads stewed with herbs, mushrooms boiled, and potatoes boiled with butter and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 23 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,686 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

And Potato Balls

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 the case

  1. Order a 2-pound loaf of bread.

  2. Bake the loaf in an oval cake tin.

  3. Let it sit for one day.

  4. Cut off the top of the loaf.

  5. Scoop out the crumb, leaving ¾ inch all around and at the bottom.

  6. Pare off the crust.

  7. Dip the case into ½ pound of oiled butter.

  8. Bake in a 400°F oven for 20 minutes.

  9. Redip in butter.

  10. Bake until pale bright brown.

Make the sweetbread sauce

  1. Blanch 2 sweetbreads in boiling water for 5 minutes.

  2. Cut into 8 pieces.

  3. Soak in cold water for 1 hour.

  4. Dry the sweetbreads.

  5. Dredge with 2 teaspoons baked flour.

  6. Rub a stewpan with garlic.

  7. Add 2 ounces of butter, then the sweetbreads.

  8. Add 1 teaspoon salt, ¼ teaspoon white pepper, grated nutmeg, lemon rind, parsley, bay leaf, mace and cloves.

  9. Add lemon juice, white wine and veal stock.

  10. Boil quickly. Skim.

  11. Simmer gently for 45 minutes.

  12. Remove sweetbreads. Skim.

  13. Strain the sauce.

  14. Add beaten egg yolks and ½ cup thick cream.

  15. Boil for 2 minutes.

Prepare the garnish and serve

  1. Remove the skin from 20 button mushrooms.

  2. Boil in 1 pint of water with ¼ teaspoon salt and lemon juice for 12 minutes.

  3. Drain.

  4. Boil 4 potatoes.

  5. Add ¼ teaspoon salt, 1 ounce melted butter and ¼ cup cream to the potatoes.

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. Nutmeg + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Lemon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Nutmeg + parsleytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,062 recipes

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

  4. Nutmeg + macetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  5. Nutmeg + lemontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

What each ingredient does

Bread
Forms the hollow case that holds the filling and bakes to a crisp, golden shell.
Butter
Adds richness and, when dipped and baked, helps the case brown and crisp.
Sweetbreads
Provide the tender, meaty filling that the sauce surrounds.
Egg yolks
Thicken the sauce and add richness as they set with gentle heat.
Thick cream
Adds richness and body to the sauce, softening its texture.
Potatoes
Mashed with butter and cream, they make a soft, smooth, moist side element.

The step that matters

Redip and bake until pale bright brown. The bread case must be fully dried and evenly coated with butter so it crisps and browns without burning. Overbaking darkens it quickly, and underbaking leaves it soft and pale.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, butter, nutmeg, lemon, parsley, mace, clove):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Marjoramfits better
  3. Allspicefits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, butter, nutmeg, lemon, parsley, mace, clove. 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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