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Sweetbreads of Veal

Sweetbreads of veal are small, tender veal organs roasted with bacon, butter, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 ↓

Sweetbreads of Veal

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Parboil

  1. Clean the sweetbreads.

  2. Cover the sweetbreads with boiling water.

  3. Add lemon juice, salt, onion, and peppercorns to the water.

  4. Simmer the sweetbreads for 20 minutes.

  5. Transfer the sweetbreads to cold water.

Prepare and bake

  1. Cut the bacon into small squares.

  2. Season the sweetbreads with salt and pepper.

  3. Roll the sweetbreads in melted butter and flour.

  4. String the bacon and sweetbreads on small skewers.

  5. Place the skewers in a hot oven (400°F / 200°C) on a pan for about 10 minutes.

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. Onion + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Lemon + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  4. Lemon + flourtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Onion + flourtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together32,460 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Heart sweetbreads
Provide the tender, delicate meat that forms the main body of the dish.
Bacon
Adds fat and salty flavor that bastes the sweetbreads as it renders in the oven.
Melted butter
Carries fat over the surface so the coating browns and turns golden in the oven.
Flour
Coats the sweetbreads so the butter clings and the surface crisps and browns.

The step that matters

Transfer the sweetbreads to cold water after simmering. Chilling after the simmer stops the cooking so the sweetbreads firm up and stay tender, and it makes them easier to handle and trim before coating.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Avocadofits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Coconutfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, 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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