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Scalloped Sweetbreads

Scalloped sweetbreads are sweetbreads simmered, coated in a buttery sauce, breaded, fried, and served with vegetables.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Scalloped Sweetbreads

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the sweetbreads

  1. Soak the sweetbreads in salt water, changing the water 2 or 3 times.

  2. Wash and clean the sweetbreads thoroughly.

  3. Place the sweetbreads in an enamelled pan with enough cold water to cover, and bring to a boil.

  4. Remove the sweetbreads from the boiling water, wash them, and return them to the pan with enough stock to cover.

  5. Simmer gently until tender, about 1 to 2 hours.

  6. Remove the sweetbreads from the stock and place them in cold water for a few minutes to firm up.

  7. Dry, trim, and slice the sweetbreads about ½ inch thick.

Make the sauce

  1. In a pan, combine the butter and flour over medium heat, rubbing together with a wooden spoon until smooth.

  2. Gradually add the stock, stirring continuously until it boils and thickens.

  3. Boil well, then add the cream and cayenne pepper.

  4. Reheat the sauce if too thick, adding more cream if necessary.

  5. Set aside the remaining sauce to serve with the sweetbreads.

Coat, fry and serve

  1. Lay the sweetbread slices on a plate and cover with part of the sauce, turning to coat both sides.

  2. Let them sit until firm.

  3. Brush the sweetbreads with egg and coat in breadcrumbs.

  4. Fry the sweetbreads in hot fat until golden brown, then drain on paper.

  5. Serve the sweetbreads in a circle with sauce around and peas, French beans, or mushrooms in the center.

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. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  2. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  5. Flour + lemontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter 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 ingredient; simmering in stock makes them tender before coating and frying.
Flour
Thickens the butter-based roux that forms the sauce.
Butter
Fat that combines with flour to form the roux, adding richness to the sauce.
White stock
Liquid that becomes the sauce body and cooks the sweetbreads to tenderness.
Cream
Adds richness and smoothness to the sauce.

The step that matters

Simmer gently until tender. Boiling vigorously toughens the delicate sweetbread membranes and can break the meat apart, so a gentle simmer keeps them tender and intact.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Lemonthe original
  2. Raisinfits about as well
  3. Coconutfits about as well
  4. Avocadofits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, butter, cream, 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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