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Scollops of Sweetbreads, a LA Roulette

Scallops of sweetbreads sautéed with clarified butter, seasoned, simmered, then served in sauce a la Poulette with mushrooms or truffles and potato croquettes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and lemon 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 ↓

Scollops of Sweetbreads, a LA Roulette

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the sweetbreads

  1. Scald the sweetbreads in the usual manner.

  2. Cut them into circular scallops.

Cook and season

  1. Place them in a sauté pan with a little clarified butter.

  2. Season with pepper, coarse sea salt, chopped parsley, and lemon juice.

  3. Simmer over moderate heat for about 10 minutes.

Finish and serve

  1. Transfer to a stewpan with enough sauce a la Poulette.

  2. Add scallops of mushrooms or truffles.

  3. Gently toss over the stove until heated.

  4. Dish up in a pyramidal form.

  5. Serve with potato croquettes around the entree.

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. Parsley + lemontop 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. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

  4. Parsley + potatotop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,855 recipes

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

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

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

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 scallops at the centre of the dish.
Clarified butter
Cooks the scallops in fat, adding richness and promoting gentle browning in the pan.
Sauce a la poulette
Adds moisture and a creamy, rich coating that binds the scallops together.
Mushrooms or truffles
Add earthy aroma and savoury depth to the sauced scallops.

The step that matters

Simmer over moderate heat for about 10 minutes. Sweetbreads are delicate, so moderate heat cooks them through gently while keeping them tender. Too much heat toughens the proteins and can make them dry or rubbery.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, pepper, parsley, lemon, sauce, 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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