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Sweetbreads Roasted

Roasted sweetbreads coated in beaten egg and cracker crumbs, served with a sauce of hot water, parsley, browned flour, and lemon juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Sweetbreads Roasted

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Parboil the sweetbreads.

  2. Place the sweetbreads in cold water for 15 minutes, then change to more cold water for 5 minutes.

  3. Wipe the sweetbreads dry.

Roast and coat

  1. Lay the sweetbreads in a roasting pan.

  2. Roast the sweetbreads, basting with butter and water until they begin to brown.

  3. Remove the sweetbreads from the oven briefly.

  4. Roll the sweetbreads in beaten egg, then in cracker crumbs.

  5. Return the sweetbreads to the oven for 10 more minutes, basting twice with melted butter.

Make the sauce and serve

  1. Keep the sweetbreads hot in a dish while you add ½ cup hot water, chopped parsley, browned flour, and lemon juice to the roasting pan.

  2. Pour the sauce over the sweetbreads and serve immediately.

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. Parsley + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Parsley + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Butter + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  5. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 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

Sweetbreads
Main protein; parboiling firms them so they hold together during roasting and coating.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, and browns the coating and surface as it bastes.
Cracker crumbs
Form a crisp, browned coating that helps the outside brown in the oven.
Beaten egg
Binds the cracker crumbs to the sweetbreads so the coating stays on.
Browned flour
Adds color and body to the pan sauce as it thickens.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich sauce and balances the butter.

The step that matters

Parboil the sweetbreads. Parboiling firms the tissue and the soaking in cold water draws out blood and impurities. Skipping or shortening these steps can leave a soft, discolored, or off-tasting result.

“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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