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Fricandeau of Sweetbreads

A sweetbread dish braised with bacon, butter, and vegetables in white stock.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Turnip and leek match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,046 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Fricandeau of Sweetbreads

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the sweetbread

  1. Blanch the sweetbread and trim it neatly, then press it between weights until cold.

  2. Lard the top of the sweetbread with strips of bacon, holding it in a cloth while doing so.

  3. Wrap the larded sweetbread in buttered paper.

Braise

  1. In a stewpan, melt 2 oz. of butter and add the sliced carrot, turnip, leek, celery, peppercorns, and herbs.

  2. Lay the sweetbread on top of the vegetables and cover the pan.

  3. Fry on the stove for 15 minutes, then add ½ pint of white stock.

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. Turnip + leektop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,046 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  3. Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Turnip + celerytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Carrot + leektop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,310 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Sweetbread
Forms the main body of the dish, becoming tender and delicate when cooked gently.
Fat bacon
Lardons add fat and savoury flavour that keep the sweetbread moist during cooking.
Butter
Fat for gentle frying that adds richness and helps the vegetables brown lightly.
White stock
Liquid that braises the sweetbread and builds a flavourful, glossy sauce.

The step that matters

Covering the pan while frying. Keeping the lid on traps steam so the sweetbread cooks gently in its own moisture and fat rather than drying or toughening over direct heat.

Swap the celery

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, carrot, turnip, leek):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Thymefits about as well
  3. Celerythe original
  4. Capersfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, carrot, turnip, leek. 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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