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Stewed Larded Lamb’s Sweetbreads

Stewed lamb sweetbreads larded with bacon, lemon peel, and pickled cucumber, served in a veal gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Stewed Larded Lamb’s Sweetbreads

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the sweetbreads

  1. Clean the sweetbreads and soak them in cold water for 1 hour.

  2. Partially boil the sweetbreads, then drain and let them cool.

  3. Lard the sweetbreads with bacon, lemon peel, and pickled cucumber.

Make the gravy

  1. In a saucepan, mix flour and mushroom powder.

  2. Gradually add veal gravy, stirring until thickened.

  3. Add the sweetbreads to the gravy.

  4. Season with lemon juice and cayenne pepper.

  5. Stew gently for 20 minutes.

Serve

  1. Serve the sweetbreads on a hot dish.

  2. Pour the gravy over them.

  3. Garnish with cut lemons.

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

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

  2. Lemon + cucumbertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,067 recipes

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

  3. Mushroom + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,580 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Pepper + cucumbertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,991 recipes

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

  5. Lamb + peppertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,165 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Lamb's sweetbreads
Are the main protein, becoming tender and mild when partially boiled and then gently stewed.
Flour
Thickens the gravy with mushroom powder as it cooks into a smooth sauce.
Mushroom powder
Adds deep, savoury earthy flavour to the gravy.
Veal gravy
Forms the liquid base of the sauce, adding body and rich meaty flavour.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich gravy and balances its savoury depth.
Fat bacon
Larded into the sweetbreads, adding fat and savoury flavour as they stew.

The step that matters

Partially boil the sweetbreads, then cool them before larding. Partial boiling firms the sweetbread and removes surface impurities, so it holds its shape and stays clean-tasting through the gentle stew. Cooling first keeps it firm enough to lard without tearing.

Swap the cucumber

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lamb, flour, mushroom, veal, lemon, pepper):

  1. Spinachfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Cucumberthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lamb, flour, mushroom, veal, lemon, 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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