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Lamb's Sweetbread

A stew of lamb sweetbreads simmered with broth, mace, onions, and butter, finished with eggs, cream, and herbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Lamb's Sweetbread

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak the sweetbreads in cold water for a short time.

Make the stew

  1. Place them in a stew pan with broth, mace, onions, pepper, and salt.

  2. Add butter and flour, then let the mixture stew for about 40 minutes.

Finish and serve

  1. Stir in the beaten eggs, parsley, nutmeg, and cream.

  2. Constantly stir the mixture without allowing it to boil to prevent curdling.

  3. Optionally, add previously boiled young French beans, peas, or asparagus tops.

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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Parsley + nutmegtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,062 recipes

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

  3. Mace + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  4. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

  5. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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.
Eggs
Thicken the cream and broth into a smooth, set sauce when gently heated.
Cream
Adds richness and a silky, smooth texture to the sauce.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, and with flour forms the base that thickens the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the liquid into a stable sauce, giving body to the mixture.

The step that matters

Stirring without boiling. Once eggs are added, high heat or boiling can cause them to curdle and turn grainy. Constant stirring and gentle heat keep the sauce smooth and creamy.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (onion, pepper, butter, flour, egg, parsley, nutmeg):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, pepper, butter, flour, egg, parsley, nutmeg. 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.

More lamb sweetbread recipes

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