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Sweetbreads with Asparagus Tips

Sweetbreads and asparagus tips served in a cream sauce thickened with egg yolks.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and butter 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 ↓

Sweetbreads with Asparagus Tips

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. Make a roux by melting the butter and mixing in the flour over hot water.

  2. Stir in the cream and asparagus liquor until smooth.

Finish and serve

  1. Add the sweetbreads and asparagus to the sauce.

  2. Cautiously add the beaten egg yolks drop by drop and cook for three minutes.

  3. Season with salt and pepper, then 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. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Asparagus + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together936 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Asparagus + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, 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 main meaty texture of the dish.
Cream
Adds richness and body to the sauce.
Egg yolks
Thicken the sauce gently as they cook, giving it a smooth, creamy body.
Butter
Fat that combines with flour to form the roux that starts the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the butter and gives the sauce structure.
Asparagus tips
Add a delicate, slightly grassy flavour and tender texture.

The step that matters

Adding the egg yolks. Egg yolks scramble if they meet heat too quickly. Adding the beaten yolks drop by drop, with the sauce kept off a hard boil, lets them thicken it smoothly instead of curdling.

Swap the white pepper

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against asparagus, cream, butter, flour, egg. 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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