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Sweetbreads Stewed

Sweetbreads stewed with aromatics, finished in a creamy sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,451 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Sweetbreads Stewed

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the sweetbreads

  1. Parboil the sweetbreads until tender.

  2. Trim off ragged parts and sinews.

  3. Cut the sweetbreads into neat pieces.

  4. Place the sweetbreads in a saucepan and cover with water.

  5. Add salt, peppercorns, cloves, and bay leaf.

  6. Simmer for 45 minutes.

  7. Remove the sweetbreads and seasoning from the saucepan.

Make the sauce

  1. In a bowl, beat the egg yolks with cream.

  2. Gradually add the broth while beating.

  3. Mix flour with cold milk or cream.

  4. Add to the egg mixture and beat thoroughly.

  5. Heat the mixture on low until it thickens, but do not let it boil.

Serve

  1. Season the sweetbreads with salt and cayenne.

  2. Add to the sauce and serve hot.

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. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Clove + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,671 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. Cream + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29,399 recipes

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

Flour and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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
Form the main body of the dish, becoming tender when parboiled and simmered.
Egg yolks
Thicken the sauce as they set gently with heat and add richness.
Cream
Adds richness and body, smoothing the texture of the sauce.
Flour
Stabilises the sauce so it thickens more evenly and holds together.

The step that matters

Heating the egg sauce. Egg yolks thicken through gentle heat but curdle and turn grainy if they boil. Keeping the heat low and stirring steadily keeps the sauce smooth.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cinnamonfits better
  3. Turmericfits better
  4. Clovethe original

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