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Croquettes of Sweet Breads

Croquettes made from veal sweetbreads, coated in egg and cracker crumbs, fried until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 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 ↓

Croquettes of Sweet Breads

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the sweetbreads

  1. Soak the sweetbreads in cold salted water for 1 hour, removing pipes and membranes.

  2. Cook in boiling salted water with vinegar for 20 minutes, then transfer to cold water to harden.

  3. Chop the sweetbreads to a paste and season with salt, pepper, and grated onion.

Make the mixture

  1. Mix in the beaten egg yolks, butter, and cream, adding enough cracker crumbs to mold the mixture.

Fry and serve

  1. Heat fat in a frying pan.

  2. Roll croquettes in beaten egg and then in cracker crumbs.

  3. Fry until golden brown.

  4. Serve hot with sliced lemon or pastry.

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. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  4. Vinegar + oniontop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,226 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  5. Vinegar + peppertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

What each ingredient does

Sweetbreads
Form the main body of the croquettes, giving a soft, meaty filling.
Eggs
Yolks bind the mixture and add richness and moisture to the filling.
Cream
Adds moisture and softness to the filling, keeping it tender when fried.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, improving flavor and the smoothness of the filling.
Cracker crumbs
Absorb moisture and help the mixture hold its shape for rolling and frying.

The step that matters

Chop the sweetbreads to a paste. A smooth, fine paste binds evenly with the yolks and cream, so the croquettes hold their shape and fry without falling apart.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, vinegar, pepper, egg, butter, cream, lemon):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, vinegar, pepper, egg, butter, cream, lemon. 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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