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Sweetbreads of Veal a LA Dauphine

Stuffed veal sweetbreads simmered in a savory gravy with bacon, herbs, and aromatics.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 16 ingredients
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Why it works: Thyme and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Sweetbreads of Veal a LA Dauphine

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the forcemeat

  1. Open the sweetbreads to stuff with forcemeat.

  2. Make forcemeat by skinning and picking off flesh from the fowl.

  3. Finely chop the bacon and beat it in a mortar with anchovy, nutmeg, lemon peel, thyme, and parsley.

  4. Mix the forcemeat with the yolks of two eggs.

  5. Stuff the sweetbreads.

  6. Fasten the stuffed sweetbreads with wooden skewers.

Stew

  1. Layer bacon in a stew‑pan.

  2. Season the bacon with pepper, salt, mace, cloves, sweet herbs, and sliced onion.

  3. Place thin slices of veal on top.

  4. Place the stuffed sweetbreads on top of the veal slices.

  5. Cover the pot.

  6. Cook over low heat for 8‑10 minutes.

  7. Pour in boiling water or broth.

  8. Let it stew gently for 2 hours.

Finish the gravy and serve

  1. Remove the sweetbreads.

  2. Keep them warm.

  3. Strain the gravy.

  4. Skim off the fat.

  5. Reduce the gravy to about half a pint.

  6. Return the sweetbreads to the gravy.

  7. Let them stew for 2‑3 minutes.

  8. Serve the sweetbreads in a dish.

  9. Pour the gravy over them.

  10. Garnish with lemon.

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. Thyme + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Lemon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Lemon + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,973 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

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

  5. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

What each ingredient does

Sweetbreads
Are the main meat, stuffed and gently stewed until tender.
Fowl
Supplies the flesh that is picked and mixed into the forcemeat filling.
Bacon
Adds fat and savoury flavour as it renders into the stew and gravy.
Egg yolks
Bind the forcemeat so it holds together inside the sweetbreads.
Veal (in the method)
Lies under the sweetbreads, adding meaty flavour to the stewing liquid.

The step that matters

Stewing gently for 2 hours. Low, gentle heat lets the connective tissue in the sweetbreads and fowl soften without toughening or drying the meat. Boiling would make the proteins contract and the texture firm and rubbery.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Marjoramfits better
  2. Winter savoryfits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against anchovy, nutmeg, lemon, thyme, parsley, egg, 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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