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Scalloped Sweetbreads a LA Richelieu

Sliced sweetbreads cooked with butter, white wine, spices, thick German sauce, truffles, and mushrooms, baked in scallop shells, topped with breadcrumbs and clarified butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Truffle and mushroom are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,900 recipes. Both carry 2,4-nonadienal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Scalloped Sweetbreads a LA Richelieu

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the sweetbreads

  1. Cut the sweetbreads into slices.

  2. In a saucepan, stew the sweetbreads with butter and white wine. Season with salt, pepper, and nutmeg, and cook for six minutes.

Assemble and bake

  1. Moisten with thick German sauce, then add truffles and mushrooms.

  2. Fill six scallop shells with the mixture.

  3. Sprinkle breadcrumbs on top and drizzle with clarified butter.

  4. Brown slightly in the oven at 350°F (175°C) for about five minutes.

Serve

  1. Serve on a dish with a folded napkin.

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

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

  2. White wine + mushroomtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,765 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity).

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

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

  4. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

  5. Butter + white winetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,083 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

What each ingredient does

Sweetbreads
Provide the tender, delicate meat that forms the body of the dish.
Butter
Adds richness and carries flavour while the sweetbreads stew gently.
White wine
Adds acidity and aroma that brighten the stewed sweetbreads.
Thick german sauce
Moistens the mixture and binds it into a creamy, cohesive filling.
Truffles
Contribute a strong, earthy aroma that gives the dish its luxurious character.
Mushrooms
Add savoury depth and a soft, moist texture to the filling.

The step that matters

Brown slightly in the oven. Sweetbreads and sauce are already cooked, so the oven only needs to colour the breadcrumbs and warm the filling. Too long a bake dries the breadcrumbs and can toughen the meat, so watch for light golden colour.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, white wine, pepper, sauce, truffle, mushroom):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. Nutmegthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, white wine, pepper, sauce, truffle, mushroom. 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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