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Creamed Sweetbreads

A dish of sautéed sweetbread cubes in a creamy sauce with optional mushrooms.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Chicken and mushroom are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,172 recipes. Both carry 1-butyl acetate, which smells fruity, banana. The science ↓

Creamed Sweetbreads

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the sweetbread

  1. Parboil the sweetbread, cool it, and cut it into ½ inch cubes.

  2. Sprinkle the cubes with coarse sea salt and dredge sparingly with flour.

  3. Sauté the cubes in 2 tablespoons of butter for five minutes, then drain.

Make the sauce

  1. In a saucepan, melt 2 tablespoons of butter and add 3 tablespoons of flour.

  2. Gradually pour in ½ cup of chicken stock and ½ cup of milk or cream while stirring constantly.

  3. Season the sauce with salt and cayenne pepper.

  4. If desired, add ⅓ pound of cleaned mushroom caps, broken into pieces, and sauté the mushrooms in butter.

Serve

  1. Serve the sweetbreads in pastry cases.

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. Chicken + mushroomtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,172 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-butyl acetate (fruity, banana).

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

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

  3. Butter + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

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

  4. Pepper + mushroomtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,580 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Milk + mushroomtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,231 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).

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

What each ingredient does

Sweetbread
Forms the tender, delicate main filling of the dish.
Flour
Dusted on the cubes and cooked into the butter to thicken the sauce.
Butter
Adds richness and carries flavor when sautéing and starting the sauce.
Milk or cream
Gives the sauce body, richness and a smooth, creamy texture.
Chicken stock
Adds savory depth and liquid that thickens into the sauce.

The step that matters

Adding the stock and milk to the roux. Pour the liquid gradually while stirring constantly so the flour and butter blend smoothly, preventing lumps and giving a silky, even 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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