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Sweetbreads Fricaseed Brown

A dish of sweetbreads sautéed in flour, simmered in beef gravy, thickened with flour and butter, and flavored with mushroom ketchup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Beef and mushroom are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,232 recipes. Both carry 2,4-nonadienal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Sweetbreads Fricaseed Brown

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare and brown

  1. Cut the sweetbreads into small pieces.

  2. Coat them in flour and fry until golden brown.

Stew and thicken

  1. Pour 1 pint of seasoned beef gravy over the sweetbreads.

  2. Stew gently until the sweetbreads are tender.

  3. Mix a little flour and butter to thicken the sauce.

  4. Add mushroom ketchup for flavor, or substitute with mushrooms.

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. Beef + mushroomtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

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

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

  3. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + ketchuptop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,435 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Mushroom + ketchuptop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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
Main protein that becomes tender when gently stewed in the sauce.
Flour
Forms a golden crust when fried and, mixed with butter, thickens the sauce.
Beef gravy
Provides the liquid base and savory meaty flavor of the stew.
Butter
Adds richness and, combined with flour, helps thicken the sauce smoothly.
Mushroom ketchup
Adds concentrated savory, earthy flavor to the sauce.

The step that matters

Stew gently until the sweetbreads are tender. Gentle heat lets the connective tissue soften slowly. Boiling tightens the proteins and leaves the sweetbreads firm and tough.

“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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