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Sweetbreads Stewed with Oysters

A stew of sweetbreads and oysters thickened with butter, flour, and cream, seasoned with white pepper, salt, nutmeg, and mace.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and mace are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,557 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Sweetbreads Stewed with Oysters

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak sweetbreads in warm water, then blanch them in boiling water, and finally rinse them in cold water.

Make the sauce

  1. In a stewpan, combine the sweetbreads, veal gravy, and strained oyster liquor.

  2. Season with white pepper, salt, nutmeg, and mace.

  3. Melt the butter in the stewpan.

  4. Stir in flour to thicken.

  5. Add the sweetbreads and gravy.

Finish and serve

  1. After a few minutes, add the oysters and cook until heated through.

  2. Just before serving, stir in the cream.

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. Nutmeg + macetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

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

  3. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. White pepper + macetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,695 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Sweetbreads
Provide the main tender, rich texture of the dish.
Oysters
Add a briny, savory flavor and a delicate texture when briefly heated.
Veal gravy
Forms the savory, meaty base of the sauce.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smooth mouthfeel, and helps build the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the sauce as its starch swells in the hot liquid.
Cream
Adds richness and a silky texture that softens the sauce's flavor.

The step that matters

Heating the oysters. Oysters toughen and shrink when overcooked, so they should be added late and heated only until just warmed through to keep them tender and plump.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (oyster, butter, flour, veal, nutmeg, mace, cream):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Allspicefits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against oyster, butter, flour, veal, nutmeg, mace, 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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