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Sweetbreads with Tomatoes

Sweetbreads cooked in a tomato sauce with butter, flour, eggs, salt, cayenne, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Sterrett, Laura C · From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Tomato and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,923 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Sweetbreads with Tomatoes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the tomato sauce

  1. Slice two quarts of ripe tomatoes.

  2. Stew until they break.

  3. Strain through a sieve into a sauce-pan.

Finish and serve

  1. Add four or five sweetbreads that have been well trimmed and soaked in warm water.

  2. Stir in two or three ounces of butter rolled in flour, with salt and cayenne pepper to taste.

  3. Just before serving, add the beaten yolks of two eggs.

  4. Serve in a deep dish, with the tomatoes poured over the sweetbreads.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

669Calories
21 gProtein
19 gFat
103 gCarbs
What these numbers assume: 7 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Flour1 cup (125g) all-purpose455
Butter1 tbsp (14g)102
Egg1 large egg (50g)78
Tomato1 medium (123g)22
Cayenne1 tsp (1.8g)6
Black Pepper1 tsp ground (2.3g)6
Salt1 tsp (6g)0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

By Sterrett, Laura C. 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. See the original page.

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. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Flour + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 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

Tomatoes
Break down into the sauce, adding moisture, body and bright acidity.
Sweetbreads
The main protein, becoming tender as they simmer in the sauce.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, and with the flour helps thicken and smooth the sauce.
Flour
Rolled into the butter, it thickens the tomato sauce so it coats the sweetbreads.
Eggs
Their beaten yolks enrich and thicken the sauce when stirred in at the end.

The step that matters

Adding the beaten egg yolks. Egg yolks thicken by gentle heat and scramble if the sauce is boiling or left on the heat too long. Add them just before serving, off the boil, and stir steadily so the sauce turns smooth and creamy rather than grainy.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Chivefits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

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