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Lamb’s Sweetbreads

A stew of lamb sweetbreads simmered with broth, onions, mace, and finished with a cream and egg mixture.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Lamb’s Sweetbreads

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the sweetbreads

  1. Blanch the lamb's sweetbreads.

  2. Soak them in cold water for a while.

Stew

  1. Place them in a stew-pan with a ladle of broth, pepper, salt, small onions, and a blade of mace.

  2. Stir in a bit of butter and flour.

  3. Stew for half an hour.

  4. Add boiled asparagus tops to the stew.

Finish with the cream sauce

  1. In a bowl, beat the eggs with cream, minced parsley, and a few grains of nutmeg.

  2. Add the cream mixture, heat gently, and stir continuously to prevent curdling.

  3. Optionally, add young French beans or peas that have been boiled until bright in color.

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

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

  2. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  3. Lamb + peppertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,165 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Onion + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

Butter and flour 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

Eggs
Thicken the cream mixture as they set gently, giving the sauce body.
Cream
Adds richness and smoothness to the sauce and helps it coat the sweetbreads.
Butter
Adds fat and flavor, and with flour forms the base that thickens the stew.
Flour
Thickens the stew liquid together with butter, giving it body.
Broth
Provides the savory liquid in which the sweetbreads and onions cook.

The step that matters

Heat the cream mixture gently and stir constantly. Eggs in the cream mixture can curdle if heated too quickly or left unstirred, leaving a grainy sauce. Gentle, continuous stirring lets the egg proteins thicken evenly into a smooth sauce.

Swap the mace

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against lamb, pepper, onion, butter, flour, egg, cream. 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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