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Sweetbread Sandwiches

A sandwich made with sweetbreads, pecan meats, hardboiled egg, onion, mayonnaise, and buttered bread.

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

Sweetbread Sandwiches

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

  1. Remove the gills from the sweetbreads and boil them until tender.

  2. Chop the sweetbreads, pecan meats, hardboiled egg, and onion.

  3. Season with salt and pepper.

  4. Mix with enough mayonnaise to create a spreadable consistency.

Assemble the sandwich

  1. Spread the mixture on a buttered slice of bread.

  2. Top with another slice of bread and trim the edges.

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. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  3. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

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

  4. Meat + breadtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,924 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Sweetbreads
Provide the main meaty texture of the filling once boiled and chopped.
Pecan meats
Add a crunchy texture and nutty flavour to the chopped filling.
Hardboiled egg
Adds body and a soft, creamy texture to the spread.
Mayonnaise
Binds the chopped ingredients and gives the filling a spreadable moisture and richness.

The step that matters

Boil the sweetbreads until tender. Sweetbreads must be fully cooked before chopping; undercooked tissue stays firm and rubbery and spreads poorly. Removing the gills first keeps the texture smooth and tender.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Asparagusfits better
  3. Potatofits better
  4. Onionthe original

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