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Fried Sweet-breads

Fried sweetbreads are parboiled, floured, and fried, served with a wine gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 19% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 50,459 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Fried Sweet-breads

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the sweetbreads

  1. Parboil the sweetbreads in salted water until done.

  2. Remove the sweetbreads from the water and dry them with a cloth.

  3. Cut the sweetbreads in half.

  4. Season the sweetbreads with salt and pepper.

  5. Dust the sweetbreads with flour.

Fry and make the sauce

  1. Fry the sweetbreads in hot lard until light brown.

  2. Add water to the frying fat and a little brown flour, stirring until thickened.

  3. Stir in the wine, remove from heat, and pour over the fried sweetbreads before serving hot.

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 + flourtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Flour + madeira winetop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together423 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Pepper + madeira winetop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together582 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Sweetbreads
Main protein; parboiling firms them so they hold together when fried.
Flour
Dusting forms a thin coating that helps the surface brown and crisp in the fat.
Brown flour
Thickens the pan liquid into a smooth sauce as it cooks with the fat.
Lisbon or madeira wine
Adds sweetness and aroma to the pan sauce.

The step that matters

Fry the sweetbreads in hot lard until light brown. If the lard is not hot enough, the coating absorbs fat and turns greasy instead of crisp and browned. Frying in hot fat seals the surface so the inside stays moist.

“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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