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Sweet-breads and Peas

Sweetbreads served with peas, buttered and floured, arranged on a parsley-plated platter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Sweet-breads and Peas

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the sweetbreads

  1. Clean, parboil, trim, and fry the sweetbreads.

Cook the peas

  1. Cook the peas in just enough water to cover them until the water boils down.

  2. Rub together 2 tablespoons of butter and 1 tablespoon of flour.

  3. Stir this into the peas 10 minutes before they are done.

Serve

  1. Trim a platter with cold parsley.

  2. Arrange the sweetbreads in a row around the platter.

  3. Pile the peas in a pyramid in the center.

  4. Ensure everything is hot.

  5. Do not place in the oven to avoid wilting the parsley.

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. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Flour + parsleytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Butter + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

Butter and flour 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, rich main protein of the dish.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, coating the peas for a smooth texture.
Flour
Thickens the butter mixture so it lightly binds the peas.

The step that matters

Stir the butter and flour into the peas 10 minutes before they are done. Flour mixed with butter must cook a few minutes in the hot liquid to thicken fully and lose its raw starchy taste. Adding it too late leaves the sauce thin or floury.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Jalapenofits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Nutmegfits better
  4. Parsleythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour. 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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