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Sweet-breads

A dish of veal sweetbreads fried with bread crumbs and served with a milk‑flour sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,466 recipes. Both carry 2-undecenal, which smells sweet. The science ↓

Sweet-breads

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak the veal sweet-breads in cold water for about an hour.

  2. Insert a lardoon of pork through the center of each sweet-bread.

  3. Boil in salted water or stock for about 20 minutes until thoroughly cooked.

  4. Transfer to cold water for a few moments to firm them up.

  5. Carefully remove the skin and pipes, and keep in a cool place until ready to cook.

  6. Cut the sweet-breads into even-sized pieces.

Fry and serve

  1. Sprinkle with pepper and salt, then dip in egg and coat with bread crumbs.

  2. Fry in hot lard until golden brown.

  3. Remove excess lard from the sauté pan, leaving about ½ teaspoon.

  4. Add 1 cup of milk thickened with a little flour, stirring constantly until cooked.

  5. Season with pepper and salt, strain, and pour over the sweet-breads.

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. Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  2. Veal + porktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,930 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

  3. Pork + milktop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,386 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

  4. Bread + porktop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,371 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Veal sweet-breads
Provide the tender, delicate meat that forms the body of the dish.
Egg
Binds the seasoning and helps bread crumbs adhere to the sweet-breads.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden coating when fried.
Flour
Thickens the milk into a smooth, pourable sauce.
Milk
Forms the creamy base of the sauce.

The step that matters

Fry in hot lard until golden brown. If the lard is not hot enough, the breaded coating absorbs fat and turns greasy instead of crisping. Starting hot sets the crumb quickly so it browns evenly and stays crisp.

“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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