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Sweet-bread Pate

A savory pate made from sweetbreads, calves’ brains, mushrooms, truffle, and cream, baked in puff pastry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Mushroom and truffle are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,900 recipes. Both carry 2,4-nonadienal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Sweet-bread Pate

Oven, in the book's wordsA very hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a very hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the crust

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Line a deep earthenware pudding dish with puff pastry.

  3. Make a pastry lid by covering a pie pan with a thick layer of pastry.

  4. Add a 1‑inch wide strip of pastry around the rim of the lid for decoration.

  5. Brush the lid lightly with cream using a pastry brush.

  6. Bake the lid and dish in the hot oven.

Make the filling

  1. In a skillet, combine ½ cup of rolled bread crumbs with enough cream to fill the cup and 1 cup of cream.

  2. Cook slowly at the back of the stove, stirring to prevent burning.

  3. Stir in the raw yolk, then the finely chopped boiled yolks and whites.

  4. Add the grated lemon rind, lemon juice, chopped onion, halved mushrooms, chopped truffle, sweetbreads, and calves’ brains cut into small pieces.

  5. Gently stir to combine without mashing.

  6. If needed, add a little more cream and cook for a few minutes.

Bake and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into the pudding dish.

  2. Carefully slip the baked crust off the pie pan onto the top of the pudding dish and serve immediately.

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. Mushroom + truffletop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,900 recipes

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

  2. Bread + mushroomtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

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

  4. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  5. Lemon + mushroomtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,633 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Sweetbreads
Provide the rich, tender meat that forms the body of the pâté.
Calves’ brains
Add a soft, creamy texture that helps bind the filling.
White bread crumbs
Thicken the cream and give the filling body and a soft texture.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness, keeping the filling smooth and tender.
Hard-boiled eggs
Add body and richness, helping the filling set and hold together.
Mushrooms
Add earthy flavour and moisture to the filling.

The step that matters

Adding the raw egg yolk to the hot cream mixture. Stirring raw yolk into a hot mixture can scramble it if added too quickly. Stir it in off the heat or gradually so the filling stays smooth and thickens evenly.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, cream, onion, egg, mushroom, truffle):

  1. Avocadofits better
  2. Pumpkinfits better
  3. Red currantfits about as well
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, cream, onion, egg, mushroom, truffle. 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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