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Sweetbreads a LA Houghton

Larded sweetbreads braised and served on a macaroni-decorated border mold with a croustade, garnished with truffles, cocks' combs and supreme sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Truffle and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,209 recipes. Both carry nonanal, which smells fat, citrus. The science ↓

Sweetbreads a LA Houghton

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the sweetbreads

  1. Blanch the sweetbreads.

  2. Parboil the sweetbreads.

  3. Press the sweetbreads.

  4. Lard the sweetbreads around the edge with bacon and truffles.

  5. Braise the sweetbreads on a bed of vegetables with a little stock until tender.

Build the border

  1. Butter a plain border mold.

  2. Decorate the mold with macaroni.

  3. Fill the mold with a pink-colored white farce made from veal or chicken.

  4. Place the croustade in the center of the border, making it higher.

Finish and serve

  1. Glaze the larded part of the sweetbreads.

  2. Crisp the sweetbreads using a salamander.

  3. Add thick supreme sauce to the center of the sweetbreads.

  4. Sprinkle the sweetbreads with chopped truffles and lobster coral.

  5. Dish the sweetbreads on the border, leaning against the croustade.

  6. Arrange cocks' combs and slices of tongue and truffle alternately around the top of the border.

  7. Stick a whole truffle on top using an ornamental skewer.

  8. Fasten more of the same garnish between the sweetbreads.

  9. Brush the tongue with thin glaze.

  10. Mask the cocks' combs with sauce.

  11. Pour thin supreme sauce around the base.

  12. Serve hot.

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. Truffle + buttertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,209 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

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

What each ingredient does

Sweetbreads
Main protein; blanching and pressing firm it, while braising makes it tender and moist.
Macaroni
Forms the decorative pattern on the mold, holding its shape once cooked.
Truffles
Adds a strong earthy aroma and luxurious flavor to the larding and garnish.
Butter
Coats the mold so the farce releases cleanly and adds richness.
Brown stock
Moistens the sweetbreads during braising, adding savory depth.

The step that matters

Crisp the sweetbreads using a salamander. Intense top heat browns the surface quickly; too little heat leaves it pale, while too much dries or burns the glazed larding before the sweetbreads warm through.

“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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