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Lambs Sweetbreads

A stew of lamb sweetbreads with broth, onions, asparagus, mace, and a custard‑like egg‑cream mixture.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Lamb and asparagus work together. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 207 recipes. Both carry 2,4-nonadienal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Lambs Sweetbreads

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Blanch the lamb sweetbreads and place them in cold water.

Make the stew

  1. In a stewpan, combine the sweetbreads, broth, pepper, salt, button onions, asparagus tops, and mace.

  2. Stir in a bit of butter and flour, then stew for 1 hour.

Finish and serve

  1. In a separate bowl, mix the egg yolks with cream, parsley, and nutmeg.

  2. Add the egg mixture to the stew, ensuring it does not boil, and stir continuously to prevent curdling.

  3. Optionally, add young French beans or peas.

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. Lamb + asparagustop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together207 recipes

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

  2. Onion + asparagustop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,212 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + asparagustop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,968 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Lamb + peppertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,165 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

Lamb sweetbreads
Provide the tender, delicate meat that forms the body of the stew.
Egg yolks
Thicken the sauce and enrich it into a smooth, custard-like texture.
Cream
Adds richness and silkiness, and softens the sauce alongside the egg yolks.
Flour
Thickens the cooking liquid so the stew becomes lightly body-rich rather than watery.
Butter
Adds fat and flavor, carrying aroma into the stew.
Broth
Forms the savory cooking liquid that the sweetbreads and vegetables stew in.

The step that matters

Adding the egg mixture to the stew. Egg yolks thicken by setting at moderate heat. If the stew boils after they go in, they scramble and curdle, leaving a grainy sauce. Keep the heat low and stir constantly.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lamb, pepper, onion, asparagus, butter, flour, egg):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Garlicfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lamb, pepper, onion, asparagus, butter, flour, egg. 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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