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Small Cases of Scollops of Sweetbreads

Sweetbreads are blanched, sliced, cooked with mushrooms, shallots, bacon, butter, herbs, and served in paper cases with gravy and lemon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and shallot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,737 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Small Cases of Scollops of Sweetbreads

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the sweetbreads

  1. Blanch the sweetbreads.

  2. Parboil the sweetbreads.

  3. Cut the sweetbreads into small scallops.

Make the filling

  1. In a pan, combine the mushrooms, parsley, shallots, grated bacon, and butter.

  2. Season the scallops with pepper, salt, and mace.

  3. Stew everything over low heat.

  4. Drain off the fat from the cooked scallops.

Assemble and serve

  1. Place the scallops in small paper cases fried in olive oil.

  2. Cover the scallops with chopped herbs.

  3. Sprinkle the scallops with fried bread crumbs.

  4. Place the paper cases in the oven for a moment.

  5. Before serving, pour a little rich gravy and lemon juice into each case.

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. Parsley + shallottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,737 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  2. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  3. Mushroom + shallottop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,982 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Parsley + olivetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,649 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Mushroom + olivetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,571 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Fine sweetbreads
Provide the tender, delicate meat that forms the scallops.
Mushrooms
Add moisture and savoury, earthy flavour to the filling as they stew.
Fat bacon
Adds savoury richness and fat that carries flavour through the stewed filling.
Fresh butter
Adds richness and fat, giving the filling a smooth, rounded mouthfeel.
Fried bread crumbs
Add a crisp, golden texture on top of the scallops.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich gravy and filling.

The step that matters

Drain off the fat from the cooked scallops. Excess fat left in the filling makes the cases greasy and can soften the crumb topping. Draining it before assembly keeps the dish light and the coating crisp.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mushroom, parsley, shallot, butter, pepper, olive, bread):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mushroom, parsley, shallot, butter, pepper, olive, bread. 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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