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Sheeps’ Sweetbreads Dressed As Lambs’

Sheep sweetbreads simmered in stock with mushrooms, parsley, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and mushroom are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 12,525 recipes. Both carry trans-2-decenal, which smells waxy, orange. The science ↓

Sheeps’ Sweetbreads Dressed As Lambs’

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Trim the sweetbreads and soak them in water for 2 hours.

  2. Scald them in boiling water with a little salt for 2–3 minutes.

  3. Place them on a plate and cover with another plate to cool.

Cook

  1. Fry the sweetbreads in butter until light brown.

  2. Transfer them to a stewpan with clear stock, parsley, and mushrooms.

  3. Let them stew for 20 minutes, add salt to taste, and serve with sauce.

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. Butter + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  2. Parsley + mushroomtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,132 recipes

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

  3. Butter + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

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

What each ingredient does

Sheeps' sweetbreads
Provide the tender main protein, which firms and becomes delicate when gently cooked.
Butter
Fat for frying that promotes light browning and adds rich flavour to the sweetbreads.
Clear stock
Liquid for stewing that keeps the sweetbreads moist and carries flavour into the sauce.
Button mushrooms
Add earthy flavour and soft texture as they stew with the sweetbreads.

The step that matters

Scalding the sweetbreads. Brief boiling firms the outer tissue and makes the sweetbreads easier to handle and cook evenly. Scalding too long toughens them, so timing matters.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, mushroom):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Garlicfits about as well
  3. Parsleythe original
  4. Marjoramfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, mushroom. 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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