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Veal Sweetbreads, Marengo Fashion

Veal sweetbreads simmered with mushrooms, garlic, parsley, spices, and broth, served with optional vinegar or tomato sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Garlic and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,308 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Veal Sweetbreads, Marengo Fashion

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the sweetbreads

  1. Clean and wash the sweetbreads.

  2. Boil the sweetbreads, then drain and slice them into finger-thick pieces.

Cook and serve

  1. In a stewpan, melt the butter and add the mushrooms or truffles, garlic, parsley, salt, pepper, and fine spices.

  2. Moisten with broth and cook over low heat for 30 minutes, with heat from above and below.

  3. Serve with a drizzle of vinegar or tomato sauce if desired.

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. Garlic + parsleytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,308 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Mushroom + garlictop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,700 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  3. Clove + parsleytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,768 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

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

  5. Clove + garlictop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,368 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

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

What each ingredient does

Sweetbreads
Provide the tender, delicate meat that forms the body of the dish.
Butter
Adds richness and carries flavour while the mushrooms cook.
Mushrooms or truffles
Contribute earthy, savoury aroma and depth of flavour.
Broth
Moistens the pan so the mixture simmers gently and stays juicy.

The step that matters

Moisten with broth and cook over low heat for 30 minutes. Low, gentle heat keeps the sweetbreads tender and prevents the liquid from reducing too fast or the proteins from toughening. Adding broth keeps the pan moist so the flavours meld without drying or scorching.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, mushroom, garlic, parsley, vinegar):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, mushroom, garlic, parsley, vinegar. 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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