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Petits Pates De Eis De Veau, or of Veal Sweetbreads

Small pates made from veal sweetbreads wrapped in bacon, stewed, then coated in béchamel, egg yolk, and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Sauce and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,787 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Petits Pates De Eis De Veau, or of Veal Sweetbreads

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the sweetbreads

  1. Stew the sweetbreads between bars of bacon in the braise until well done.

  2. Remove from heat and let them cool in the braise.

  3. Cut the sweetbreads into small squares.

Make the filling

  1. Toss the squares in hot béchamel sauce.

  2. Add the egg yolk and cream to the sauce, mixing well.

  3. Fill your petits pates with the mixture.

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. Sauce + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,787 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Veal + beeftop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,784 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

  3. Egg + creamtop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together42,166 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  4. Beef + saucetop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,650 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Beef + creamtop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,128 recipes

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

Egg and cream barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 42,166 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Veal sweetbreads
Provide the tender, rich meat that forms the body of the filling.
Bacon
Wraps the sweetbreads while stewing, adding fat and savory flavor to the meat.
Béchamel sauce
Binds the diced sweetbreads together into a creamy, spreadable filling.
Egg yolk
Enriches the sauce and helps it set to a smooth, thick texture.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness, softening the texture of the filling.

The step that matters

Stewing the sweetbreads until well done. Sweetbreads must be cooked fully and gently in the braise so they become tender and firm enough to cut cleanly into squares. Undercooked sweetbreads stay soft and crumble, while overcooking toughens the proteins.

“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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