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Rissoles of Sweetbreads

A dish of sweetbread rissoles made with veal, mushrooms, ketchup, and cream, breaded and fried.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Rissoles of Sweetbreads

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the sweetbreads

  1. Boil the sweetbreads for 1 hour until tender. Let them cool and chop finely.

Make the filling

  1. In a saucepan, combine minced veal, mushrooms, ketchup, and butter. Stir to prevent burning.

  2. Dredge in flour, then add broth and cream. Stir until it boils and thickens.

  3. Strain the mixture and use some to moisten the chopped sweetbreads. Boil for 3-4 minutes.

Shape and fry

  1. When cool, form the mixture into small balls and roll in bread crumbs.

  2. Dip the balls in beaten egg, then roll in bread crumbs again. Refrigerate until needed.

  3. Fry the balls in boiling lard until golden. Serve in a napkin with sauce on the side.

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. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  2. Mushroom + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

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

  3. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  4. Mushroom + breadtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,536 recipes

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

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour 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

Calves’ sweetbreads
Provide the tender, rich meat that forms the body of the filling.
Minced veal
Adds meaty bulk and structure to the filling.
Flour
Thickens the sauce so the mixture holds together when shaped.
Cream
Adds richness and smoothness to the thickened sauce.
Egg
Binds the coating so the bread crumbs adhere during frying.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp outer crust that browns when fried.

The step that matters

Thickening the sauce before shaping. The mixture must boil and thicken fully after the flour is added. If it stays thin, the balls will not hold their shape and may break apart in the coating or the hot lard.

“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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