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Sweet-bread Fried

Fried sweetbreads seasoned with pepper, sea salt, and grated bread, served with parsley and bacon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Sweet-bread Fried

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut sweetbreads into long slices.

  2. Beat the egg yolk and brush it over the sweetbreads using a feather.

  3. Mix pepper, coarse sea salt, and grated bread for seasoning; sprinkle over the sweetbreads.

Fry and serve

  1. Fry the sweetbreads in butter until golden brown.

  2. Garnish with crisped parsley and small thin slices of toasted bacon.

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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Bread + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,588 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Sweetbreads
Provide the tender, delicate meat that is the main component of the dish.
Egg yolk
Acts as a binder so the seasoning crumbs adhere to the sweetbreads.
Grated bread
Forms a crumb coating that browns and crisps when fried.
Butter
Conducts heat for frying and adds richness and browning to the crust.

The step that matters

Fry the sweetbreads in butter until golden brown. Frying over steady heat browns the crumb coating through the Maillard reaction while the interior stays tender. Too hot and the crust scorches before the centre cooks; too cool and the coating absorbs grease and turns soggy.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Parsleythe original
  2. Nutmegfits about as well
  3. Sagefits less well
  4. Tarragonfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, pepper, bread, butter. 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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