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Sweetbreads with Mushrooms

A savory dish of parboiled sweetbreads simmered in a mushroom and sherry sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Allspice and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,874 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Sweetbreads with Mushrooms

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Parboil the sweetbreads.

  2. Fry the sweetbreads in butter until rich brown.

  3. Open the can of mushrooms and pour off the juice.

  4. Cut the mushrooms in half.

  5. Sprinkle the mushrooms with flour.

Make the sauce

  1. In the same butter, add hot water, sherry wine, allspice, cloves, salt, and pepper.

  2. Thicken the mixture with flour until it reaches the consistency of thick cream.

  3. Add the mushrooms and cook for 15 minutes.

Finish and serve

  1. Return the sweetbreads to the pan and cook for an additional 10 minutes, basting continuously.

  2. Serve hot, pouring the prepared dressing over the sweetbreads.

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. Allspice + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Allspice + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Mushroom + sherrytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,176 recipes

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Sweetbreads
Main protein; frying in butter browns the surface and gives a rich, savory crust.
Butter
Fat for frying that browns the sweetbreads and carries flavor into the sauce.
Mushrooms
Add earthy flavor and chewy texture to the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the sauce so it clings to the sweetbreads.
Sherry wine
Adds acidity and depth to the sauce.

The step that matters

Thickening the sauce with flour. Flour must be stirred into the hot liquid so it disperses evenly; added in lumps or too quickly it stays grainy and the sauce will not reach a smooth, creamy consistency.

Swap the allspice

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, mushroom, flour, sherry, wine, clove, pepper):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Cinnamonfits better
  3. Nutmegfits about as well
  4. Allspicethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, mushroom, flour, sherry, wine, clove, pepper. 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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