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Ragout of Sweetbreads and Mushrooms for Vol-au-vent

A sauce of sweetbreads and mushrooms served in a vol-au-vent.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Mushroom and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 12,525 recipes. Both carry trans-2-decenal, which smells waxy, orange. The science ↓

Ragout of Sweetbreads and Mushrooms for Vol-au-vent

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Blanch the sweetbreads as directed in another recipe.

  2. Cut the mushrooms and sweetbreads into half-inch pieces.

Make the sauce

  1. In a thick saucepan, melt the butter.

  2. Stir in the flour until bubbling.

  3. Gradually add the liquor from the canned mushrooms.

  4. Add enough white broth, cream, or milk to create a sauce that coats the spoon.

  5. Add the sweetbreads and mushrooms to the sauce.

  6. Season with salt and white pepper.

  7. Simmer until the sweetbreads are white and tender, about 5 minutes.

  8. If the ragout is too thick, thin it with a little milk.

  9. Adjust seasoning.

Finish and serve

  1. Stir in the beaten yolks of the eggs.

  2. Stir in the glass of wine.

  3. Serve in a vol-au-vent.

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. Mushroom + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

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

  2. Mushroom + winetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,632 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-propylphenol (allspice, anise).

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

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

  4. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + winetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,645 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

Flour and butter 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, meaty body of the ragout after blanching and simmering.
Flour
Thickens the butter and liquid into a smooth sauce that coats the spoon.
Butter
Adds richness and carries the flour to form the base of the sauce.
Button mushrooms
Add earthy flavor and chewy texture to the ragout.
Egg yolks
Enrich and thicken the sauce, adding body and a silky texture.

The step that matters

Stir in the beaten yolks of the eggs. Egg yolks thicken when heated, but if the sauce is too hot they can curdle and turn grainy. Keep the heat low and stir constantly, and add a little hot sauce to the yolks first to temper them.

Swap the white pepper

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

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

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