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Lamb Sweetbreads and Tomato Sauce

Lamb sweetbreads simmered in butter and served with tomato sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and tomato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,923 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Lamb Sweetbreads and Tomato Sauce

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash the lamb sweetbreads well in salted water.

  2. Parboil them for 15 minutes, then let them cool.

  3. Trim the sweetbreads neatly and place them in a pan with enough butter to prevent burning.

Cook and serve

  1. Toss the sweetbreads until they are a delicate color.

  2. Season with salt and pepper, and serve surrounded with tomato sauce.

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 + tomatotop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  2. Lamb + tomatotop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together979 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans,trans-2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

  3. Lamb + peppertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,165 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Tomato + saucetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,469 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Butter and sauce barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 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

Lamb sweetbreads
Form the main body of the dish, becoming tender after parboiling and gently browning in butter.
Butter
Fat for tossing the sweetbreads, carrying heat evenly and helping prevent burning while they take on color.
Tomato sauce
Provides acidity and moisture alongside the rich sweetbreads as the serving sauce.

The step that matters

Toss the sweetbreads until they are a delicate color. Sweetbreads are delicate and the butter can burn quickly over high heat, which would darken and toughen the surface. Keeping the color light and the heat gentle preserves a tender texture.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Capsicumfits about as well
  2. Potatofits about as well
  3. Tomatothe original
  4. Asparagusfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against lamb, butter, pepper, sauce. 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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