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Blanquette of Lamb’s Sweetbreads

A stew of lamb sweetbreads simmered in white sauce with truffles, mushrooms, and seasonings, served with a potato border.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Chicken and mushroom are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,172 recipes. Both carry 1-butyl acetate, which smells fruity, banana. The science ↓

Blanquette of Lamb’s Sweetbreads

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the sweetbreads

  1. Soak the Lamb’s Sweetbreads in cold water, then blanch and drain them.

  2. Stew the sweetbreads in white stock until cooked, then drain and trim them.

Make the blanquette

  1. Cut the sweetbreads into small oblong pieces called collops and place them in a stewpan with sliced truffles.

  2. Pour some German sauce over the sweetbreads and heat until hot.

Serve

  1. Make a potato border on a hot dish, fill the center with the blanquette, 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.

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. Chicken + mushroomtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,172 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-butyl acetate (fruity, banana).

  2. Mushroom + truffletop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,900 recipes

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

  3. Lamb + chickentop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together626 recipes

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

  4. Butter + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  5. Butter + truffletop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,209 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

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

What each ingredient does

Lamb’s sweetbreads
Provide the tender, delicate meat that forms the body of the blanquette.
Egg yolks
Enrich and thicken the sauce, giving it a smooth, velvety texture.
White sauce
Adds creamy moisture and body that binds the sweetbreads together.
Fresh butter
Adds richness and a silky mouthfeel to the sauce.
Sliced truffles
Contribute a strong, earthy aroma that perfumes the dish.

The step that matters

Heating the sauce with the sweetbreads. Once the egg yolks are in the sauce, it must be heated gently; too much heat can curdle the eggs and leave the sauce grainy instead of smooth and velvety.

“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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