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Sweetbreads Larded

Sweetbreads larded with bacon, stewed in stock with vegetables, then browned and served with a reduced glaze.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Sweetbreads Larded

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the sweetbreads

  1. Trim the sweetbreads.

  2. Soak the sweetbreads in tepid water for 30 minutes.

  3. Parboil the sweetbreads for a few minutes.

  4. Place the sweetbreads in cold water until completely cool.

  5. Remove the sweetbreads from the water and dry them.

  6. Lard the sweetbreads thickly with fine strips of bacon.

Stew and make the sauce

  1. In a stewpan, place a slice of fat bacon with the stock and chopped vegetables.

  2. Lay the sweetbreads on top.

  3. Stew gently until fully cooked, basting occasionally with the liquid.

  4. Strain the liquid.

  5. Skim off the fat.

  6. Reduce the liquid to a glaze.

Brown and serve

  1. Brown the larded side of the sweetbreads with a salamander.

  2. Serve with the sauce over them.

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 + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

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

  3. Carrot + thymetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  4. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Onion + thymetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,171 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
Provide the main tender meat, which becomes creamy when gently stewed.
Bacon
Adds fat and savoury flavour, and keeps the lean sweetbreads moist as it melts.
Rich stock
Forms the cooking liquid that gently braises the sweetbreads and becomes the sauce.
Onion
Releases sweetness and aroma into the stewing liquid as it cooks.
Carrot
Adds gentle sweetness and body to the stewing liquid and sauce.

The step that matters

Stew gently until fully cooked. Sweetbreads turn firm and rubbery if boiled or cooked too hard. A gentle simmer lets the proteins set softly while keeping them tender and moist, and basting keeps the surface from drying.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (carrot, parsley, thyme):

  1. Parsnipfits better
  2. Turnipfits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against carrot, parsley, thyme. 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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