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Roulettes of Sweetbreads

A pastry case filled with sweetbread, ham, and mushroom mixture, topped with mashed potato.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Mushroom and butter 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 ↓

Roulettes of Sweetbreads

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the pastry

  1. Roll out the puff pastry thinly and cut into strips about 3 inches wide.

  2. Fold each strip around small roll tins and fasten the join with beaten egg.

  3. Place the joined side down on a baking tin and bake at 400°F (200°C) for 7 minutes.

Make the filling

  1. Chop the sweetbreads, ham, and mushrooms finely.

  2. Melt the butter in a pan, add the flour, and stir in the stock gradually, cooking for 2-3 minutes.

  3. Add the cream, seasonings, and meat mixture, and heat until hot.

Fill and serve

  1. Remove the pastry cases from the tins and fill them with the mixture.

  2. Garnish the ends with mashed potato passed through a rose forcer and serve as an entrée.

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. Mushroom + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

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

  2. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Potato + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

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

  4. Mushroom + potatotop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together968 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  5. Mushroom + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,580 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Sweetbreads
Provide the main meaty filling, chopped finely so it blends into the sauce.
Puff pastry
Forms the crisp, flaky outer case that puffs and browns in the oven.
Butter
Enriches the base for the sauce and carries the flour's thickening.
Flour
Thickens the stock with butter into a smooth, binding white sauce.
White stock
Supplies the liquid that, thickened with flour, forms the sauce for the filling.
Cream
Adds richness and a softer, smoother texture to the finished filling.

The step that matters

Stir in the stock gradually. Adding liquid slowly to the melted butter and flour lets the starch disperse evenly, which prevents lumps and gives a smooth sauce.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (ham, mushroom, potato, butter, flour, cream, pepper):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Nutmegfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, mushroom, potato, butter, flour, cream, pepper. 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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