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And Potato Balls

A savory ball made from bread, sweetbread, mushrooms and potatoes, served with a sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 26 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. 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, one day old, and bake it in an oval cake tin.

  2. Cut off the top of the loaf and scoop out the crumb, leaving ¾ inch all around and at the bottom.

  3. Pare off the crust and dip the case into ½ pound of oiled butter.

  4. Bake in the oven at 400°F (200°C) for 20 minutes.

  5. Redip in butter.

  6. Bake until pale bright brown.

Make the sweetbread sauce

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

  2. Cut the sweetbreads into 8 pieces.

  3. Soak the sweetbread pieces in cold water for 1 hour.

  4. Dry the sweetbreads, then dredge them with 2 teaspoons of baked flour.

  5. Rub a stewpan with garlic.

  6. Add 2 ounces of butter, sweetbreads, 1 teaspoon salt, ¼ teaspoon white pepper, grated nutmeg, lemon rind, parsley, laurel leaf, bay leaf, mace, cloves, lemon juice, white wine, and veal stock.

  7. Boil quickly, then skim.

  8. Simmer gently for 45 minutes.

  9. Remove the sweetbreads.

  10. Skim and strain the sauce.

  11. Add 2 beaten egg yolks mixed with ½ cup thick cream.

  12. Boil for 2 minutes.

Make the filling and serve

  1. Remove the skins from the mushrooms.

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

  3. Boil the potatoes.

  4. Add ¼ teaspoon salt, 1 ounce dissolved butter, ¼ cup cream, and 1 beaten egg 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. Lemon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

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

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  4. Parsley + laureltop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,652 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  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 crisp, golden case that holds the filling.
Sweetbreads
Provide the tender, rich meat that forms the main filling.
Egg yolks
Thicken the sauce and give it a smooth, rich body.
Cream
Adds richness and moisture to the sauce and potatoes.
Potatoes
Form a soft, moist base that binds the dish together.
Veal stock
Gives the sauce its savoury depth and body.

The step that matters

Boil the sauce for 2 minutes after adding the egg yolks and cream. Egg yolks thicken as they heat, but if the sauce boils too hard or too long it can curdle and turn grainy, so keep it at a gentle boil and stir constantly.

Swap the white pepper

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

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

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