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Rissoles of Sweetbreads

Rissoles made from minced sweetbreads, breadcrumbs, eggs, and spices, cooked in gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 13,015 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Rissoles of Sweetbreads

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no cooking times; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare the sweetbreads

  1. Boil the sweetbreads.

  2. Blanch the sweetbreads.

  3. Mince the sweetbreads.

Shape the rissoles

  1. Mix the minced sweetbreads with the breadcrumbs.

  2. Season the mixture with pepper, salt, nutmeg, and beaten eggs. Mix until smooth.

  3. Shape the mixture into long balls.

  4. Dust the balls with flour.

Cook and serve

  1. Heat the gravy in a saucepan. Add drawn butter until boiling.

  2. Cook the rissoles in the boiling gravy a few at a time for 10 minutes.

  3. Drain the gravy.

  4. Transfer the rissoles to a hot dish.

  5. Mix the gravy with a beaten egg. Heat until thickened.

  6. Pour over the rissoles.

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. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Nutmeg + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Nutmeg + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together24,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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 main meat, minced to form the body of the rissoles.
Eggs
Bind the mixture and, beaten into the gravy, help it thicken when heated.
Fine breadcrumbs
Absorb moisture and give the minced mixture enough body to hold its shape.
Drawn butter
Adds richness and fat to the gravy, giving it a smoother, silkier mouthfeel.

The step that matters

Cook the rissoles in the boiling gravy a few at a time. Adding too many rissoles at once drops the gravy's temperature and slows cooking. Cooking in small batches keeps it boiling so the coating sets and the rissoles cook evenly.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Parsleyfits about as well
  2. Nutmegthe original
  3. Capersfits less well
  4. Tarragonfits less well

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