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To Make Sweet Breads

Sweet Breads are veal and suet loaf shaped and fried with butter and breadcrumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread 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 ↓

To Make Sweet Breads

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mixture

  1. Shred the raw veal very fine.

  2. Add the marrow or beef suet, pepper, and coarse sea salt; mix well in a marble mortar.

  3. Shape the mixture into sweet breads.

Coat and fry

  1. Beat the egg yolk and dip the shaped breads into it.

  2. Fry in a generous amount of butter, adding bread crumbs between them.

  3. Pour a little melted butter on top before serving.

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. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  2. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

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

  3. Veal + beeftop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,784 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

  4. Beef + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Raw veal
Forms the main body of the sweet breads, giving them a tender, meaty texture.
Marrow or beef suet
Adds fat that keeps the mixture moist and rich during frying.
Egg yolk
Binds the shaped breads and helps the coating adhere before frying.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden outer layer as the breads fry in butter.

The step that matters

Frying in butter. Frying over steady, moderate heat in a generous amount of butter browns the crumb coating without burning it. Too little fat or too much heat can leave the outside scorched while the inside stays underdone.

“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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