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Sweetbreads a LA Creme

Sweetbreads simmered with lemon, onion, mace, and stock, finished in a cream sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Sweetbreads a LA Creme

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the sweetbreads

  1. Soak the sweetbreads in cold water, then bring to a boil and cook for 3 minutes.

  2. Trim away all the fat from the sweetbreads.

Simmer

  1. In a pan, combine the sweetbreads with milk, stock, lemon rind, onion, mace, salt, pepper, parsley, and peppercorns.

  2. Simmer gently for 45 minutes.

Make the cream sauce

  1. In another pan, melt the butter and stir in the flour.

  2. Gradually pour in the stock and milk mixture, stirring until well combined.

  3. Add the cream and bring to a boil.

  4. Stir in the sweetbreads and a squeeze of lemon juice.

  5. Serve garnished with truffles and parsley.

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. Lemon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  4. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  5. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

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

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.
Butter
Melts with the flour to form the base of the roux that thickens the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the sauce when cooked with butter and combined with the liquid.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, velvety texture to the sauce.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the sauce, adding body and mild sweetness.
Stock
Adds savoury depth to the sauce liquid.

The step that matters

Make the roux and add the liquid gradually. Cooking the butter and flour together before adding liquid gives a smooth sauce. Pouring the liquid in slowly while stirring prevents lumps, because starch granules need to disperse evenly before they thicken.

Swap the mace

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against lemon, onion, pepper, parsley, milk, butter, flour. 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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