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Sweetbreads Aux Fines Herbes

Sweetbreads cooked with lard, mushrooms, fine herbs, parsley, garlic, shallots, butter, pepper, bacon, white wine, and stock.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 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 ↓

Sweetbreads Aux Fines Herbes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Scald the sweetbreads and remove any membranes.

  2. Lard the sweetbreads.

  3. Finely chop the mushrooms, fine herbs, parsley, garlic, and shallots.

  4. In a bowl, mix the chopped ingredients with butter and pepper.

Stew and serve

  1. Place slices of bacon under and over the sweetbreads.

  2. Add white wine and stock to the pan.

  3. Stew gently until cooked through.

  4. Skim the sauce and serve it over the sweetbreads.

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. Parsley + garlictop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,308 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Garlic + shallottop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,000 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Sweetbreads
Main protein; becomes tender and delicate when gently stewed.
Lard
Adds fat that keeps the sweetbreads moist and rich during cooking.
Mushrooms
Contribute earthy flavour and moisture to the chopped herb mixture.
Bacon
Adds smoky, savoury fat that flavours the sweetbreads as they cook.
Butter
Adds richness and fat that carries the herb flavours and helps browning.
White wine
Adds acidity and aroma that brighten the sauce and balance the richness.

The step that matters

Stew gently until cooked through. Sweetbreads turn firm and rubbery if boiled or cooked hard. A gentle simmer keeps the proteins tender and the fat from separating.

Swap the garlic

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

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Garlicthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mushroom, parsley, shallot, butter, pepper, white wine. 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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