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Sweetbread Soup

A soup made from blanched sweetbreads, stock, celery, herbs, mace, cream, and egg yolks.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 16,012 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Sweetbread Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the sweetbreads

  1. Blanch the sweetbreads and remove the pipes and fat.

  2. Slice the sweetbreads thinly and place them in a saucepan with the stock, herbs, celery, and mace.

Make the soup

  1. Simmer for 30 minutes until tender.

  2. Pass the mixture through a fine sieve.

  3. Return the strained mixture to the saucepan and heat until very hot.

Finish and serve

  1. Mix the cream and egg yolks together.

  2. Strain the mixture into the soup.

  3. Cook for 2 minutes without boiling.

  4. Season to taste.

  5. Serve.

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. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

  2. Mace + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,257 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  3. Celery + macetop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,769 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  4. Mace + creamtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,009 recipes
  5. Celery + creamtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,863 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-decalactone (peach, creamy).

Mace and pepper barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 12,257 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
Provide the tender, rich meat that forms the body of the soup.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, silky mouthfeel to the soup.
Egg yolks
Thicken the cream enrichment through gentle heat, giving the soup body and a velvety texture.
Stock
Supplies the liquid base and savoury flavour in which the sweetbreads cook.

The step that matters

Cook for 2 minutes without boiling. Egg yolks thicken when heated gently but will curdle and turn grainy if the soup boils. Keeping the heat low after adding the yolk and cream mixture preserves a smooth, silky texture.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Nutmegfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against celery, cream, egg, 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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