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Swiss Cream

A sweetbread dish simmered, then larded, stewed, and finished with a cream‑egg mixture and asparagus tops.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Swiss Cream

Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Swiss Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the sweetbreads

  1. Soak the sweetbreads in lukewarm water.

  2. Place them in a saucepan with boiling water and simmer for 10 minutes.

  3. Remove the sweetbreads and place them in cold water.

  4. Lard the sweetbreads.

Stew

  1. Place them in a stewpan with stock, seasoning, onions, mace, and a thickening of butter and flour.

  2. Stew gently for 1 hour.

Finish and serve

  1. Beat the eggs with the cream, then add the minced parsley and a pinch of grated nutmeg.

  2. Stir the egg and cream mixture into the other ingredients until hot, but do not let it boil.

  3. Add the boiled asparagus tops to the sweetbreads and 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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Parsley + nutmegtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,062 recipes

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

  3. Nutmeg + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

  4. Parsley + asparagustop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together566 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Pepper + asparagustop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,968 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Sweetbreads
Main protein; soaking and simmering firm them so they can be larded and stewed gently.
Eggs
Set with the cream to thicken the sauce into a smooth, custard-like texture.
Cream
Adds richness and moisture, and blends with the eggs to give a silky finish.
Bacon
Lardons add fat that keeps the lean sweetbreads moist during the long stew.

The step that matters

Stirring the egg and cream mixture in. Egg proteins set and curdle when overheated, so the mixture must be heated gently until hot and never allowed to boil, or the sauce will turn grainy.

Swap the asparagus

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

  1. Spinachfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Asparagusthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, egg, parsley, nutmeg, 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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