Name: Sweetbread Salad
Ingredients: 1 pound sweetbreads; ½ teaspoon coarse sea salt; 1 tablespoon vinegar; 1½ cups cucumber, cut into ¼ inch cubes; 1 cup English walnut meats, cut into pieces; Boiled Salad Dressing

Why it works: Cucumber and walnut match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 380 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Sweetbread Salad

Ingredients

1 pound sweetbreads
½ teaspoon coarse sea salt
1 tablespoon vinegar
1½ cups cucumber, cut into ¼ inch cubes
1 cup English walnut meats, cut into pieces
Boiled Salad Dressing

Directions

Prepare the sweetbreads

Boil sweetbreads in salted and acidulated water for 20 minutes.
Drain and plunge into cold water for 5 minutes.
Drain and dry the sweetbreads, then cut into ¼ inch cubes.

Assemble and serve

In a bowl, combine sweetbreads, cucumber, and walnut meats.
Toss lightly with a fork and serve with Boiled Salad 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.

Cucumber + walnuttop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together380 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Vinegar + cucumbertop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,734 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).
Walnut + meattop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,035 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Vinegar + walnuttop 22% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,769 recipes

Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).
Cucumber + meattop 24% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together323 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

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

What each ingredient does

Sweetbreads: Provide the tender, meaty main body of the salad.
Cucumber: Adds crisp texture and moisture to the salad.
English walnut meats: Add crunch and a rich, nutty flavor against the soft sweetbreads.