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Sweetbreads with Sauce

A dish of sweetbreads cooked with butter, vegetables, herbs, stock, sherry, cayenne, mushrooms, and Espagnole sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and carrot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,173 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Sweetbreads with Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Remove gills from sweetbreads and press them between two plates until cold.

Braise

  1. Wrap sweetbreads in buttered paper and place in a stewpan with butter, celery, carrot, onion, and herbs. Fry lightly for 15 minutes.

  2. Add stock and cook in the oven at 350°F (175°C) for 1 hour, adding more stock as needed.

Glaze and serve

  1. Brush sweetbreads with warm glaze.

  2. Crisp lardons in the oven.

  3. Serve on fried croutons with sauce made from sherry, cayenne, mushrooms, and truffle essence, boiled down and mixed with Espagnole sauce and sweetbread liquor.

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. Celery + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Sherry + mushroomtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,176 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-methylphenol (smoky, clove).

  3. Carrot + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Celery + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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 centre of the dish.
Butter
Enriches the cooking fat and adds richness and flavour during gentle frying and braising.
Stock
Supplies moisture and savoury flavour as the sweetbreads cook slowly in the oven.
Sherry
Adds acidity and depth to the sauce as it reduces, concentrating its flavour.
Espagnole sauce
Forms the rich, thickened body of the final sauce.

The step that matters

Pressing the sweetbreads until cold. Pressing firms the meat and removes excess moisture, so it holds its shape and browns better when fried. Chilling first also makes the sweetbreads easier to handle and slice cleanly.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, celery, carrot, sherry, mushroom, sauce):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, celery, carrot, sherry, mushroom, sauce. 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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