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Baked Sweetbreads

Baked sweetbreads coated in egg white and cracker crumbs, baked until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Egg and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 118,967 recipes. Both carry decanal, which smells soap, orange peel. The science ↓

Baked Sweetbreads

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure. The book gives no cooking times; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare

  1. Soak sweetbreads in cold water for 30 minutes.

  2. Parboil sweetbreads for 10 minutes.

  3. Season with coarse sea salt and black pepper.

  4. Roll in beaten egg white, then in cracker crumbs.

Bake and serve

  1. Dot with small pieces of butter.

  2. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) for about 30 minutes.

  3. Serve on toast.

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. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  2. Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  3. Pepper + eggtop 33% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together50,580 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Pepper and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 50,580 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
Main protein; soaking and parboiling firm and clean them before baking.
Egg white
Binds the cracker crumbs to the surface so they form a crisp coating.
Cracker crumbs
Form a crisp, golden crust that browns in the oven.
Butter
Adds fat that enriches flavor and helps the crust brown as it bakes.

The step that matters

Parboil sweetbreads for 10 minutes. Parboiling firms the delicate tissue so it holds its shape through soaking, coating and baking. Skipping or overcooking it can leave the sweetbreads soft or crumbly.

“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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