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Sweet-bread Patties

Sweetbread patties are savory patties made from diced sweetbreads simmered in cream and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Sweet-bread Patties

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the sweetbreads

  1. Soak sweetbreads in salted water for 3 hours.

  2. Skim the water, then place sweetbreads in 1 quart of water with ½ chile pepper and a small piece of onion.

  3. Cook thoroughly, then remove and let cool.

  4. Cut sweetbreads into dice.

Make the filling

  1. In a pan, melt 2 tablespoons of butter, then stir in 2 tablespoons of flour.

  2. Add 1 cup of cream, diced sweetbreads, pepper, and salt; mix well.

  3. Bring the mixture to a boil and serve in pattie shells.

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. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  2. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  3. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Onion + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Onion + flourtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together32,460 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Sweetbreads
Provide the tender, delicate meat that forms the body of the filling.
Butter
Enriches the base and carries the flour, adding richness and flavor.
Flour
Cooked into the butter to form a roux that thickens the cream sauce.
Cream
Forms the sauce, adding moisture, richness and a smooth, thick texture.

The step that matters

Stirring the flour into the melted butter. Cooking the flour in the butter forms a roux, which thickens the cream evenly. Adding cream before the flour is cooked can leave the sauce pasty or lumpy.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Spinachfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Potatofits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, cream, flour, butter. 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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