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Sweetbreads En Coquilles

A dish of blanched sweetbreads simmered in butter, wine, and mushroom liquor, baked with velouté, mushrooms, truffles, and breadcrumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Mushroom and truffle 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 ↓

Sweetbreads En Coquilles

8 shell dishes

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the filling

  1. In a saucepan, stew the sweetbread slices with butter, white wine, and mushroom liquor for 10 minutes.

  2. Add veloute sauce, minced mushrooms, and chopped truffles. Season with salt, pepper, and nutmeg.

  3. Finish by adding cream or butter.

Bake and serve

  1. Fill 8 shell dishes with the mixture, sprinkle with breadcrumbs, and drizzle with clarified butter.

  2. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven for 6 minutes until browned.

  3. Serve on a hot dish garnished with fried parsley.

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. Mushroom + truffletop 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 + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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 body of the filling.
Butter
Adds richness and carries flavour while the sweetbreads stew and finish the sauce.
Veloute sauce
Gives the filling a smooth, creamy body that binds the sweetbreads and mushrooms.
Mushrooms
Add earthy savoury depth and a meaty texture to the filling.
Truffles
Contribute a strong, aromatic earthy fragrance to the filling.

The step that matters

Baking until browned. The filling is already cooked, so the short bake mainly browns the breadcrumbs and warms the dish. Too long in the oven can dry the butter-rich filling and toughen the sweetbreads.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Tarragonfits about as well
  3. Garlicfits about as well
  4. Nutmegthe original

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