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Sweetbreads D LA Daube

Sweetbreads simmered in veal gravy with bacon, lemon, and browning, thickened with flour and butter, served with celery or oyster patties and barberries.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,467 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Sweetbreads D LA Daube

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Boil the sweetbreads in water for 5 minutes.

  2. Remove them from the water and let them cool.

  3. Lard the sweetbreads with small pieces of bacon.

Stew and serve

  1. Place them in a stewpan with veal gravy, lemon juice, and browning.

  2. Stew gently for 15 minutes, then thicken with flour and butter.

  3. Serve with gravy poured over and garnish with boiled celery or oyster patties and barberries.

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 + celerytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,467 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + celerytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,905 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Lemon + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  5. Veal + lemontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,580 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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.
Bacon
Adds fat and savoury flavour as it is threaded through the sweetbreads.
Veal gravy
Supplies the liquid and rich meaty base in which the sweetbreads stew.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich gravy and balances its richness.
Flour
Thickens the gravy so it clings to the sweetbreads when served.
Butter
Adds fat and richness to the thickened gravy, giving it a smooth finish.

The step that matters

Thickening the gravy with flour and butter. Flour must be cooked into the butter and liquid so starch can swell and thicken evenly; adding it raw or in clumps leaves lumps and a floury taste.

Swap the celery

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

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Sagefits better
  3. Capersfits better
  4. Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, lemon, flour, butter. 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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