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Patties of Veal-sweetbreads, with Gravy

Patties made from veal sweetbreads, ham, truffles, and white wine, baked in short pastry and served with brown sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and white wine are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,083 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Patties of Veal-sweetbreads, with Gravy

Oven, in the book's wordsA slack oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slack oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the filling

  1. Cut sweetbreads and ham into large dice.

  2. In a stewpan, melt butter and fry sweetbreads and ham on low heat, turning occasionally for 4-5 minutes.

  3. Add diced truffles and season.

  4. Pour in white wine and let the liquid reduce over high heat, then remove from heat.

Assemble and bake

  1. Line 10 tartlet molds with short pastry and mask with a layer of quenelle force-meat.

  2. Fill the molds with the sweetbread mixture, cover with another layer of force-meat, and top with a round of short pastry.

  3. Make a small hole in the center of each cover, egg wash the tops, and bake in a 300°F (150°C) oven until golden.

Serve

  1. After baking, turn out the patties and fill each through the hole with brown sauce.

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. Butter + white winetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,083 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. Veal + truffletop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together815 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

  3. Butter + truffletop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,209 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  4. Ham + truffletop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together516 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  5. Ham + meattop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,095 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

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

What each ingredient does

Veal sweetbreads
Form the tender, rich meat filling of each patty.
Raw ham
Adds savory, salty flavor to the sweetbread filling.
Butter
Fat for frying that carries flavor and promotes gentle browning.
Truffles
Contribute a strong, earthy aroma to the filling.
White wine
Adds acidity and depth as the liquid reduces in the pan.

The step that matters

Reducing the wine over high heat. The wine must cook down until nearly all its liquid evaporates, so the filling stays moist but not wet. Leftover liquid would make the pastry soggy and dilute the flavor.

“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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