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Sweet-breads

Veal sweetbreads are washed, parboiled, coated in beaten egg and cracker dust, then fried and served with stewed mushrooms.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Sweet-breads

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash the sweet-breads and remove any skin or pipes.

  2. Soak them in cold, slightly salted water for 2–3 hours.

  3. Parboil the sweet-breads for 20 minutes or until tender.

  4. Transfer the sweet-breads to cold water for 10 minutes to whiten them.

  5. Set the sweet-breads aside in a cool place.

Coat and fry

  1. Dip the sweet-breads in beaten egg.

  2. Coat the sweet-breads with cracker dust.

  3. Fry the sweet-breads in hot butter or beef drippings until golden.

Serve

  1. Serve the sweet-breads with stewed mushrooms poured over the top, if desired.

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

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

  2. Butter + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  3. Bread + mushroomtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,536 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Veal + mushroomtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,446 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (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
Form the tender, delicate main body of the dish once parboiled and fried.
Beaten egg
Binds the cracker dust to the surface so the coating stays on during frying.
Cracker dust
Forms a crisp, golden crust when fried in fat.
Butter or beef drippings
Conducts heat for frying and encourages browning and a rich flavor on the crust.
Stewed mushrooms
Add moisture and savory, earthy flavor over the crisp coating.

The step that matters

Whitening in cold water after parboiling. Plunging the parboiled sweet-breads into cold water for 10 minutes firms their surface and helps keep them pale and clean-tasting, so the later frying gives an even golden colour rather than a greyish, muddy look.

“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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