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Sweetbreads of Veal a LA Danphine

Sweetbreads of Veal à la Danphine are veal sweetbreads stuffed with bacon, anchovy, herbs, veal slices, and simmered in broth.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 16 ingredients
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Why it works: Thyme and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Sweetbreads of Veal a LA Danphine

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the sweetbreads

  1. Lard the sweetbreads.

  2. Open the sweetbreads.

  3. Finely chop bacon.

  4. Mix bacon with anchovy, nutmeg, lemon peel, thyme, parsley, and egg yolks to make force‑meat.

  5. Fill the sweetbreads with the mixture.

  6. Stuff the sweetbreads with force‑meat.

  7. Secure the sweetbreads with wooden skewers.

Braise

  1. In a skillet, layer bacon.

  2. Season the bacon with pepper, salt, mace, cloves, herbs, and diced onion.

  3. Add thin slices of veal.

  4. Place the stuffed sweetbreads on top.

  5. Cover the skillet.

  6. Cook over low heat for 8‑10 minutes.

  7. Pour in boiling water or broth.

  8. Cover the skillet.

  9. Simmer for 2 hours.

Finish the gravy and serve

  1. Remove the sweetbreads.

  2. Keep the sweetbreads warm.

  3. Strain the gravy.

  4. Skim off fat from the gravy.

  5. Reduce the gravy to ½ pint.

  6. Return the sweetbreads to the gravy.

  7. Cook for 2‑3 minutes.

  8. Serve the sweetbreads with gravy.

  9. Garnish with lemon.

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. Thyme + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

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

  3. Lemon + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,973 recipes

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

  4. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Sweetbreads
Provide the tender main meat that is stuffed, braised and served in the gravy.
Bacon
Adds fat and savory flavour that bastes the sweetbreads and enriches the gravy.
Egg yolks
Bind the force-meat so the stuffing holds together when cooked.
Anchovy
Adds deep savory flavour to the force-meat without tasting distinctly fishy.
Veal
Adds meaty body and gelatin to the braising liquid and gravy.

The step that matters

Simmer for 2 hours. A long, gentle simmer below boiling lets collagen in the veal and sweetbreads break down into tender meat and body in the gravy, while a hard boil would toughen the proteins and cloud the sauce.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (anchovy, nutmeg, lemon, thyme, parsley, egg, pepper):

  1. Marjoramfits better
  2. Winter savoryfits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against anchovy, nutmeg, lemon, thyme, parsley, egg, 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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