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Sweet Bread and Cucumber Salad

A salad of diced sweetbreads, celery, cucumber, dressed with French dressing and set in gelatin.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and cucumber are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,745 recipes. Both carry linalool, which smells floral, citrus. The science ↓

Sweet Bread and Cucumber Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the sweetbreads

  1. Boil sweetbreads until tender, then remove fibers.

  2. Once cold, cut sweetbreads into small dice.

Make the salad

  1. Mix equal parts diced sweetbreads and chopped celery, and one-third as much diced cucumber.

  2. Pour French dressing over the mixture.

Mold and fill

  1. Mold gelatin in small round cups, remove the center, and fill the cavity with the salad.

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. Celery + cucumbertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,745 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  2. Celery + gelatintop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together172 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-pinene (pine, resin).

  3. Cucumber + gelatintop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together43 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
Provide the main body and tender texture of the salad.
Celery
Adds crisp texture that contrasts with the tender sweetbreads.
Cucumber
Adds cool, crisp moisture and a light fresh bite.
Gelatin
Sets into a firm mold that holds the salad's shape.

The step that matters

Removing the fibers after boiling. Sweetbreads contain tough membranes and connective fibers that stay chewy if left in place. Removing them while the meat is still warm from boiling makes the texture tender and even throughout the salad.

Swap the cucumber

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (celery, gelatin):

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Lettucefits better
  3. Mustardfits better
  4. Cucumberthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against celery, gelatin. 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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