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Roasted Sweetbreads

Roasted sweetbreads are braised in stock, then baked with a mushroom gravy thickened with browned flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Pork and mushroom are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,875 recipes. Both carry 2-methoxy-4-propylphenol, which smells allspice, anise. The science ↓

Roasted Sweetbreads

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the sweetbreads

  1. Parboil and blanch the sweetbreads until blood-warm.

  2. Sew each sweetbread in a piece of cloth, shaping it like an egg or pear.

  3. Place the sewn sweetbreads between two plates with a weight on top and refrigerate for several hours.

  4. Remove the cloths from the sweetbreads.

  5. Perforate each sweetbread in several places with a skewer.

  6. Insert a lardoon of fat salt pork into each sweetbread, with ends sticking out.

Roast

  1. Arrange the sweetbreads in a baking pan.

  2. Add 1 cup of weak stock to the pan.

  3. Roast the sweetbreads in a 400°F (200°C) oven, basting four or five times.

  4. Transfer the sweetbreads to a hot dish.

Make the gravy and serve

  1. Cover the dish while you strain the gravy.

  2. Add a large spoonful of minced mushrooms to the gravy.

  3. Thicken the gravy with browned flour.

  4. Boil the gravy sharply.

  5. Season the gravy with pepper.

  6. Serve the gravy in a sauceboat, adding a spoonful on each sweetbread.

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. Pork + mushroomtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,875 recipes

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

  2. Cheese + mushroomtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,015 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  3. Mushroom + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,580 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Cheese + porktop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,735 recipes

    Shared aroma: 12-methyltridecanal (tallowy, beefy).

  5. Pork + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,121 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

What each ingredient does

Sweetbreads
The main protein; parboiling and pressing firm it so it holds its shape while roasting.
Fat salt pork
Lardons melt during roasting, adding fat that moistens the sweetbreads from within.
Browned flour
Thickens the gravy and adds a toasted, nutty flavour.
Minced mushrooms
Add earthy savoury flavour to the gravy.

The step that matters

Boil the gravy sharply after thickening. Browned flour must be cooked through at a hot boil so it thickens fully and loses its raw starchy taste. Gentle simmering leaves the gravy thin or pasty.

“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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