Skip to main content
Main

Sweetbreads a LA Touraine

A dish of sweetbreads cooked with onions, carrots, peas, mushrooms, and a cream sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Sherry and mushroom are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,176 recipes. Both carry 2-methoxy-4-methylphenol, which smells smoky, clove. The science ↓

Sweetbreads a LA Touraine

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the sweetbreads

  1. Parboil the sweetbreads.

  2. Melt the butter in a skillet and sauté the sweetbreads with the onion and carrot until browned.

  3. Transfer the sweetbreads to a baking pan.

  4. Add the sherry and stock to the pan, then cook in a 350°F (175°C) oven for 30 minutes, basting often.

Prepare the peas

  1. Mash the cooked peas through a sieve and reheat, allowing excess water to evaporate.

  2. Season the peas with butter, pepper, and salt, then shape into nests on a platter, one for each sweetbread.

  3. Arrange the sweetbreads in the pea nests.

Make the sauce and serve

  1. In the skillet, sauté the mushrooms in butter, then stir in the flour until combined.

  2. Add the cream and the gravy from the sweetbreads, stirring until smooth.

  3. Pour the sauce around the sweetbreads.

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. Sherry + mushroomtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,176 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-methylphenol (smoky, clove).

  2. Carrot + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

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

  3. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Carrot + peastop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,994 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Sweetbreads
Main protein; parboiling and browning give them a firm, golden exterior with a tender interior.
Butter
Adds richness and helps browning in the skillet, carrying flavour through the dish.
Flour
Thickens the mushroom and cream sauce by absorbing liquid and gelatinising when heated.
Cream
Makes the sauce rich and smooth, adding fat and body to the gravy.
Sherry
Adds acidity and aromatic depth to the gravy as it cooks with the sweetbreads.
Cooked peas
Form the base nests, contributing sweetness, colour and a soft, mashed texture.

The step that matters

Parboil the sweetbreads and brown them well. Parboiling firms the tissue so it holds together, and browning in fat builds the savoury flavour that the later gravy depends on. Skipping either leaves the sweetbreads soft and the sauce flat.

Swap the peas

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, onion, carrot, sherry, pepper, mushroom, flour):

  1. Beansfits better
  2. Chestnutfits better
  3. Sesamefits better
  4. Peasthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, onion, carrot, sherry, pepper, mushroom, flour. 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.

You might also like

Green PeasGreen Peas229 recipesCarrot SoupCarrot Soup134 recipesMushroom SoupMushroom Soup60 recipesGreen Peas SoupGreen Peas Soup35 recipes