Skip to main content
Main

Lamb Sweetbreads

A stew of lamb sweetbreads simmered with veal stock, onions, mace, and a creamy egg mixture.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Lamb Sweetbreads

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the sweetbreads

  1. Soak the sweetbreads in lukewarm water.

  2. Place them in a saucepan with boiling water to cover and simmer for 10 minutes.

  3. Remove the sweetbreads from the saucepan and place them in cold water.

  4. Lard the sweetbreads.

Make the sauce and serve

  1. Lay the larded sweetbreads in a stewpan.

  2. Add the veal stock, seasoning, onions, mace, and thickening of butter and flour.

  3. Stew gently for 15-20 minutes.

  4. Beat the eggs with the cream.

  5. Add the minced parsley and grated nutmeg.

  6. Stir this mixture into the other ingredients until hot, but do not let it boil.

  7. Add boiled asparagus tops to the sweetbreads.

  8. Serve.

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 + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  2. White pepper + macetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,695 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Onion + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Sweetbreads
Provide the tender main protein that is simmered, larded and stewed.
Veal stock
Supplies liquid and savory body for the sauce in which the sweetbreads stew.
Butter and flour thickening
Thickens the stock into a smooth sauce that coats the sweetbreads.
Eggs
Enrich and thicken the cream mixture, giving the sauce a silky, custard-like body when heated.
Cream
Adds richness and fat, giving the sauce a smooth, mellow texture.

The step that matters

Stirring the egg and cream mixture in without boiling. Eggs thicken by gentle heat; if the mixture boils, the proteins can curdle and the sauce turns grainy instead of smooth.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, onion, mace, butter, flour, egg, cream):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Capersfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, onion, mace, butter, flour, egg, cream. 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.

More lamb sweetbreads recipes

Fried 3Stewed 3 See all 20 →

You might also like

Veal PattiesVeal Patties50 recipesBeef, Mutton, or Veal BrothBeef, Mutton, or Veal Broth6 recipesTomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipes