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Mayonnaise of Sweetbreads

A dish of sweetbreads simmered in veal stock, set with gelatin, topped with mayonnaise, and garnished.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and clove 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 ↓

Mayonnaise of Sweetbreads

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the sweetbreads

  1. Blanch and boil the sweetbreads in veal stock for a few minutes.

  2. Cool the sweetbreads, then cut them into small round pieces.

Make the gravy

  1. In a saucepan, combine the sweetbreads with pepper, salt, mace, garlic, and veal stock.

  2. Add the gelatin and simmer for 15 minutes.

Set and finish

  1. Place the pieces in a shallow dish.

  2. Pour the gravy over the pieces.

  3. Allow the mixture to set firmly.

  4. Cover the set mixture with mayonnaise.

  5. Once cold, garnish with aspic, savory jelly, beetroot, and decorative hard-boiled egg.

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 + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. Mace + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  3. Pepper + garlictop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,090 recipes

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

  4. Garlic + beetroottop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together406 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Clove + beetroottop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together285 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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, whose tender texture forms the body of the dish.
Veal stock
Adds savoury depth and liquid to the gravy that surrounds the sweetbreads.
Leaf gelatine
Sets the cooked gravy into a firm jelly that holds the pieces together.
Mayonnaise
Adds a rich, creamy fat layer over the set mixture.

The step that matters

Allow the mixture to set firmly. Gelatine only sets properly when the gravy is fully chilled and undisturbed. Covering or moving the dish too early can leave a soft, weeping jelly that does not hold its shape.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, pepper, clove, garlic, beetroot, egg):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Capersfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, pepper, clove, garlic, beetroot, egg. 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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