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Stewed Sweetbreads

Stewed sweetbreads simmered with butter, cream, parsley, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Stewed Sweetbreads

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Remove all skin and fat from the sweetbreads.

  2. Wash the sweetbreads thoroughly.

  3. Soak the sweetbreads in cold water for 1 hour.

Cook the sweetbreads

  1. Place the sweetbreads in a stew-pan and cover with boiling water.

  2. Add 1 teaspoon of salt.

  3. Boil briskly for 30 minutes or until cooked through.

  4. Pour off the boiling water.

  5. Cover with cold water and let stand for 10-15 minutes.

  6. Once cold and firm, cut the sweetbreads into small square pieces.

  7. Sprinkle the pieces with salt and flour.

Stew and serve

  1. In a clean stew-pan, combine the sweetbreads with butter, cream, parsley, and pepper.

  2. Simmer for 10 minutes.

  3. Serve in a hot, covered dish.

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. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + parsleytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

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; cooking firms them so they hold their shape when cut into pieces.
Cream
Adds richness and moisture, giving the stewed pieces a smooth, silky body.
Flour
Lightly coats the pieces and helps thicken the sauce as it simmers.
Butter
Adds fat and flavour to the stew and helps carry aroma.

The step that matters

Boil briskly for 30 minutes or until cooked through. Sweetbreads need enough heat and time to cook fully through. Then the cold-water rest firms the meat, so it cuts into clean pieces instead of crumbling.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Parsleythe original
  3. Tarragonfits about as well
  4. Turmericfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, butter, cream, 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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