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Sweetbreads of Veal a-LA-Dauphine

Veal sweetbreads stuffed with fowl, bacon, and seasonings, simmered in a spiced gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Thyme and parsley 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 of Veal a-LA-Dauphine

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the sweetbreads

  1. Open the sweetbreads.

  2. Stuff them with forcemeat made from the fowl meat, bacon, and seasonings.

  3. Fasten the sweetbreads with fine skewers.

Stew

  1. In a stewpan, layer bacon slices, seasoned with pepper, salt, mace, cloves, sweet herbs, and onion.

  2. Add thin slices of veal to the stewpan.

  3. Place the stuffed sweetbreads on top.

  4. Cover the stewpan.

  5. Cook over low heat for 8-10 minutes.

  6. Pour in boiling water.

  7. Let it stew gently for 2 hours.

Make the gravy and serve

  1. Remove the sweetbreads from the pan.

  2. Strain the gravy.

  3. Boil the gravy until reduced to ½ cup.

  4. Return the sweetbreads to the pan.

  5. Stew for 3 minutes.

  6. Pour the gravy over them.

  7. Garnish with lemon.

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. Thyme + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

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

  3. Clove + thymetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,108 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  4. Pepper + thymetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,585 recipes

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

  5. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

What each ingredient does

Sweetbreads
Main protein that becomes tender and succulent during slow stewing.
Bacon
Adds fat and smoky savour that flavours the stewing liquid and forcemeat.
Fowl meat
Forms the forcemeat stuffing, giving the sweetbreads a soft, cohesive filling.
Egg yolks
Bind the forcemeat, helping it hold together during cooking.
Onion
Adds sweetness and aromatic depth to the stewing liquid and gravy.

The step that matters

Let it stew gently for 2 hours. Gentle, low heat over a long time breaks down connective tissue so the sweetbreads become tender. A rolling boil can toughen the proteins and dry the meat.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, meat, onion, pepper, clove, thyme, parsley):

  1. Marjoramfits better
  2. Winter savoryfits better
  3. Allspicefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, meat, onion, pepper, clove, thyme, parsley. 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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