Skip to main content
Main

Ragout of Sweetbreads and Mushrooms for Vol-au-vent

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

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 elsewhere.

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

Make the sauce

  1. In a thick saucepan, melt the butter and flour over medium heat until bubbling.

  2. Gradually stir in the liquor from the mushrooms and enough broth, cream, or milk to create a sauce that coats the spoon.

  3. Add the sweetbreads and mushrooms to the sauce.

  4. Season with salt and white pepper.

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

  6. Thin the ragout with a little milk if it is too thick.

  7. 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, delicate meat that forms the body of the ragout.
Butter and flour
Form a roux that thickens the liquor and broth into a sauce.
Egg yolks
Enrich and further thicken the sauce, adding richness and body when stirred in.
Button mushrooms
Add earthy flavour and texture alongside the sweetbreads.
Wine
Adds acidity and aroma that brighten the rich, creamy sauce.

The step that matters

Stir in the beaten egg yolks. Egg yolks thicken through gentle heat; if the sauce is boiling when they go in, they can scramble and turn grainy. Add them off the boil and stir steadily.

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.

You might also like

Mushroom SoupMushroom Soup60 recipesTomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesMutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipes