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Fried Sweetbreads

Fried sweetbreads are parboiled, larded with salt pork, and fried until crisp.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Pork and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 13,933 recipes. Both carry 2-furfurylthiol, which smells coffee, roasted. The science ↓

Fried Sweetbreads

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Parboil the sweetbreads for about five minutes.

  2. Wipe them dry.

  3. Lard with strips of salt pork.

Fry

  1. Grease a frying pan with lard or butter.

  2. Fry the sweetbreads, turning often, until they are crisp and brown.

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. Pork + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,933 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

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

What each ingredient does

Sweetbreads
Are the main protein; frying turns their outer surface crisp and brown while the inside stays tender.
Salt pork
Adds fat and salty, savory flavor to the sweetbreads as they cook.
Lard or butter
Conducts heat into the pan and adds fat for frying, helping the surface brown.

The step that matters

Fry the sweetbreads, turning often, until crisp and brown. Frying over steady heat and turning often lets the surface dry and brown evenly, forming a crisp crust. Pieces left too long in one place can scorch on one side while the rest stays pale.

“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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