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Stuffed Sweetbreads

Stuffed sweetbreads filled with breadcrumbs, nuts, mushrooms, cream, and butter, baked and served on toast with cress.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Mushroom and white wine are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,765 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity. The science ↓

Stuffed Sweetbreads

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Parboil, trim, and peel the sweetbreads.

Stuff and season

  1. Stuff the sweetbreads with bread crumbs, chopped nuts, chopped mushrooms, cream, and melted butter.

  2. Place in a shallow baking pan and season with pepper, coarse sea salt, and a few pieces of butter.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake at 400°F (200°C), basting with white wine mixed with a little melted currant jelly.

  2. Serve on toast rounds and garnish with cress.

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. Mushroom + white winetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,765 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity).

  2. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  3. Mushroom + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

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

  4. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  5. Butter + white winetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,083 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

What each ingredient does

Sweetbreads
Provide the tender, delicate meat that is stuffed and baked.
Bread crumbs
Absorb the cream and butter, giving the stuffing body and a soft texture.
Mushrooms
Add moisture and savory, earthy flavor to the stuffing.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness to the stuffing, keeping it from drying out.
White wine
Adds acidity and moisture to the basting liquid, helping the surface brown and flavor develop.
Currant jelly
Adds sweetness to the basting liquid, promoting browning on the surface.

The step that matters

Baking and basting at 400°F (200°C). Basting with wine and currant jelly keeps the surface moist while the sugars in the jelly brown. Too little basting or too long a bake can dry the sweetbreads and burn the glaze.

Swap the nuts

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, mushroom, cream, butter, pepper, white wine, currant):

  1. Peasfits better
  2. Chestnutfits better
  3. Beansfits better
  4. Nutsthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, mushroom, cream, butter, pepper, white wine, currant. 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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