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Three Sweetbreads, and Asparagus Peas

A dish of sweetbreads simmered in stock with bacon, served with bechamel sauce, French beans, asparagus peas, and croutons or pastry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Beans and asparagus match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 292 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Three Sweetbreads, and Asparagus Peas

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the sweetbreads

  1. Blanch the sweetbreads.

  2. Place the blanched sweetbreads in cold water.

Braise

  1. Line a stew-pan with fat bacon.

  2. Add the stock to the pan.

  3. Place the sweetbreads in the pan.

  4. Cover the sweetbreads with more bacon and writing paper.

  5. Simmer gently on the stove for about 30 minutes.

  6. Remove the sweetbreads from the pan.

  7. Set the sweetbreads aside until needed.

Plate and serve

  1. Heat the bechamel sauce.

  2. Place the sweetbreads on a plate.

  3. Pour the bechamel sauce over the sweetbreads.

  4. Cut the French beans into leaves and stalks.

  5. Arrange the cut beans around each sweetbread.

  6. Garnish with asparagus peas.

  7. Top with croutons or pastry.

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. Beans + asparagustop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together292 recipes

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

  2. Asparagus + peastop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together808 recipes

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

  3. Beans + peastop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together949 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  4. Sauce + beanstop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,184 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Sauce + asparagustop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together573 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Sweetbreads
Main protein; gentle simmering in stock keeps them tender and moist.
Stock
Liquid for gentle simmering, adding savoury flavour and keeping the sweetbreads moist.
Bechamel sauce
Creamy coating that adds richness and moisture to the sweetbreads.
Fat bacon
Fat that lines the pan and adds savoury, smoky flavour to the braising liquid.

The step that matters

Simmering the sweetbreads gently. Sweetbreads are delicate; a hard boil toughens the proteins and makes them dry and rubbery, so keep the stock at a gentle simmer for the full time.

Swap the peas

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sauce, beans, asparagus):

  1. Sesamefits better
  2. Lentilsfits better
  3. Lima beansfits better
  4. Peasthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sauce, beans, asparagus. 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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