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To Fricasee Sweetbreads White

A stew of sweetbreads simmered in veal gravy with mushrooms, mace, pepper, salt, flour, butter, cream, and nutmeg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Mace and nutmeg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,557 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

To Fricasee Sweetbreads White

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare and stew

  1. Scald the sweetbreads and place them in a stewpan.

  2. Add veal gravy, button mushrooms, beaten mace, pepper, and salt.

  3. Stew for 20 minutes.

Thicken and serve

  1. Thicken the gravy with flour and butter.

  2. Once done, lay the sweetbreads in a dish.

  3. Add cream and grated nutmeg to the gravy, shake well over heat.

  4. Pour the gravy over the sweetbreads and garnish with barberries or French beans.

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. Mace + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

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

  3. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Veal gravy
Forms the savoury liquid base and carries the flavour of the whole dish.
Flour
Thickens the gravy so it coats the sweetbreads rather than running off.
Butter
Adds richness and helps bind the flour into a smooth thickening base.
Cream
Adds body, softness and a mellow richness to the finished gravy.
Button mushrooms
Contribute an earthy flavour and a tender, meaty texture to the gravy.
Mace
Adds a warm, aromatic spice note that lifts the savoury gravy.

The step that matters

Adding the cream to the gravy. Cream can separate or turn grainy if it is boiled hard, so it should be stirred in over gentle heat and kept just hot. Shaking the gravy well while it warms helps the cream blend in evenly and keeps the sauce smooth.

Swap the mace

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, mushroom, pepper, flour, butter, cream, nutmeg. 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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