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Moulded Sweetbread and Cucumber Salad

A chilled salad of diced sweetbreads, cucumber, and cream, served on lettuce with French dressing.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Cucumber and lettuce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,409 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Moulded Sweetbread and Cucumber Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the sweetbreads

  1. Simmer sweetbreads in salted water with bay leaf, onion, and mace for 20 minutes.

  2. Cool and cut sweetbreads into dice; you should have about ¾ cup.

Make the gelatine mixture

  1. Soak gelatine in cold water and dissolve in boiling water.

  2. Add lemon juice and beaten cream to the gelatine mixture.

  3. Stir in sweetbread cubes, cucumber, salt, and pepper.

Set and serve

  1. Pour into molds and chill until set.

  2. Serve on lettuce leaves with French dressing.

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. Cucumber + lettucetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,409 recipes

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

  2. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

  3. Onion + lettucetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,562 recipes

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

  4. Onion + cucumbertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,050 recipes

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

  5. Pepper + lettucetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,037 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Sweetbreads
Provide the main substance and tender texture of the salad.
Gelatine
Sets the mixture so it holds its shape when chilled in molds.
Heavy cream
Adds richness and a soft, airy body to the set mixture.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour of the rich mixture.

The step that matters

Soak gelatine in cold water and dissolve in boiling water. Gelatine must be fully hydrated, then dissolved in hot water, or it will set unevenly and leave grainy or rubbery spots in the salad.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (onion, lemon, cream, cucumber, pepper, lettuce):

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Celeryfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, lemon, cream, cucumber, pepper, lettuce. 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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