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Cervelles or Sweetbreads “en Matelote”

A French dish of sweetbreads simmered in a white wine and vegetable stock, served in a mushroom and onion sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: White wine and mushroom are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,765 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity. The science ↓

Cervelles or Sweetbreads “en Matelote”

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the sweetbreads

  1. Prepare the sweetbreads by simmering them in white wine, water, and vegetables until cooked.

  2. Strain the cooking stock through a fine sieve.

Make the sauce

  1. In a pan, fry small onions in butter until golden.

  2. Sprinkle in flour and stir.

  3. Add the strained stock, mushrooms, pepper, and salt.

  4. Simmer until the onions and mushrooms are tender.

Finish and serve

  1. Add the sweetbreads to warm them through, then serve.

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. White wine + mushroomtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,765 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity).

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

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

  3. White wine + buttertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,083 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Onion + mushroomtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,626 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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 is the main element of the dish.
Butter
Fat that browns the small onions, adding color and rich flavor.
Flour
Thickens the cooking liquid into a sauce as it is stirred into the pan.
White wine
Adds acidity and aromatic depth to the stock used for simmering.
Button mushrooms
Soften during simmering and add earthy flavor and moisture to the sauce.

The step that matters

Sprinkle in flour and stir. Flour must be stirred into the hot fat so it cooks evenly; adding stock before it is blended can cause lumps, and the raw flour taste is not cooked out if it is rushed.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (white wine, butter, flour, mushroom, pepper):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against white wine, butter, flour, mushroom, 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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