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Lamb's Sweetbreads

A stew of lamb sweetbreads simmered with broth, onions, spices, and finished with an egg‑cream mixture.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 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 and soak them in cold water.

Make the stew

  1. In a stew-pan, combine sweetbreads, a ladleful of broth, pepper, coarse sea salt, small onions, and a blade of mace.

  2. Stir in a bit of butter and flour, and stew for half an hour.

Finish the stew

  1. In a bowl, beat together eggs and cream, adding minced parsley and grated nutmeg.

  2. Add boiled asparagus-tops to the stew, then stir in the egg mixture without boiling to prevent curdling.

  3. Optionally, add boiled young French beans or peas for 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

Lamb's sweetbreads
Tender, delicate meat that forms the body of the stew.
Eggs
Thicken the cream mixture into a smooth, silky sauce when gently heated.
Cream
Adds richness and moisture, softening the sauce with the egg.
Butter
Adds fat and flavor, and combines with flour to start thickening the stew.
Flour
Thickens the broth into a stew body when cooked with butter.
Broth
Forms the liquid base that carries the flavors and cooks the sweetbreads.

The step that matters

Stirring in the egg mixture without boiling. Egg proteins set and curdle when overheated, which makes the sauce grainy. Keeping the stew below a boil lets the eggs thicken it smoothly.

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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