Skip to main content
Main

Sweetbreads a LA Touraine

Sweetbreads à la Touraine is a savory dish of sweetbreads baked with peas, mushrooms, and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Sherry and mushroom are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,176 recipes. Both carry 2-methoxy-4-methylphenol, which smells smoky, clove. The science ↓

Sweetbreads a LA Touraine

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the sweetbreads

  1. Parboil the sweetbreads until tender.

  2. Melt the butter in a skillet and sauté the sweetbreads with the onion and carrot until browned.

  3. Transfer the sweetbreads to a baking pan and add the sherry and stock.

  4. Bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven for 30 minutes, basting often.

Prepare the peas and mushrooms

  1. Mash the cooked peas through a sieve and reheat, allowing excess water to evaporate.

  2. Season the peas with butter, salt, and pepper, and shape into nests on a platter.

  3. In the same skillet, sauté the mushrooms in butter, then stir in the flour.

Make the sauce and serve

  1. Add the cream and the gravy from the baking pan, stirring until smooth.

  2. Arrange the sweetbreads in the pea nests.

  3. Pour the sauce around the sweetbreads.

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. Sherry + mushroomtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,176 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-methylphenol (smoky, clove).

  2. Carrot + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

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

  5. Carrot + peastop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,994 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

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

What each ingredient does

Sweetbreads
Main protein; parboiling first firms them so they hold their shape during browning and baking.
Butter
Fat for browning the sweetbreads and mushrooms, adding richness and flavor to the peas.
Flour
Thickens the pan juices and mushroom liquid into a smooth, body-rich sauce.
Cream
Adds richness and body, giving the sauce a smooth, velvety texture.
Rich stock
Adds savory depth and moisture to the baking pan, forming the base of the gravy.
Mushrooms
Contribute earthy flavor and moisture that blends into the sauce.

The step that matters

Browning the sweetbreads before baking. Searing creates browned, flavorful surfaces through the Maillard reaction. Parboiled sweetbreads are fragile, so handle them gently and dry the surface so they brown instead of steaming.

Swap the peas

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, onion, carrot, sherry, pepper, mushroom, flour):

  1. Beansfits better
  2. Chestnutfits better
  3. Sesamefits better
  4. Peasthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, onion, carrot, sherry, pepper, mushroom, flour. 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.

You might also like

Green PeasGreen Peas229 recipesCarrot SoupCarrot Soup134 recipesMushroom SoupMushroom Soup60 recipesGreen Peas SoupGreen Peas Soup35 recipes