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Dessert

Sweetbread Pie

A pie of sweetbreads, artichoke bottoms, cock's combs, truffles, morels, asparagus tops, mushrooms, egg yolks, and forcemeat balls, baked in puff pastry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 16 ingredients
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Why it works: Artichoke and asparagus match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 165 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-one, which smells mushroom, metallic. The science ↓

Sweetbread Pie

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 300°F (150°C).

  2. Lay puff pastry in a deep dish.

  3. Put forcemeat around the sides of the dish.

Assemble and bake

  1. Layer sweetbreads, artichoke bottoms, cock's combs, truffles, morels, asparagus tops, mushrooms, egg yolks, and forcemeat balls in the dish.

  2. Season with pepper and coarse sea salt.

  3. Almost fill the pie with water and cover it.

  4. Bake for 2 hours.

Finish and serve

  1. After baking, pour in rich veal gravy thickened with a little cream and flour.

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. Artichoke + asparagustop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together165 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  2. Truffle + mushroomtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,900 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

  3. Asparagus + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together400 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

  4. Artichoke + mushroomtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together447 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  5. Asparagus + peppertop 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
Provide the tender, rich meat that forms the centre of the pie.
Puff pastry
Forms a flaky, crisp crust that bakes golden in the oven.
Truffles
Add a strong, earthy aroma that gives the filling its luxurious character.
Morels
Add a meaty, earthy texture and deep savoury flavour to the filling.
Rich veal gravy
Adds moisture and savoury depth, thickened with cream and flour into a sauce.
Hard-boiled egg yolks
Add richness and a soft, creamy texture to the filling.

The step that matters

Almost fill the pie with water and cover it. Baking at a low 300°F for a long time needs enough liquid in the dish so the ingredients stay moist and do not dry out. Leaving the dish too empty risks a dry, tough filling.

Swap the asparagus

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (artichoke, truffle, mushroom, egg, pepper, veal, cream):

  1. Asparagusthe original
  2. Spinachfits about as well
  3. Shallotfits about as well
  4. Chivefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against artichoke, truffle, mushroom, egg, pepper, veal, 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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