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Salad

Sweetbread-and-Cucumber Salad

A salad of cabbage lettuce, sweetbreads, cucumber, and jelly mayonnaise.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Lettuce and cucumber 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 ↓

Sweetbread-and-Cucumber Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Arrange the leaves of the cabbage lettuce loosely on a serving dish.

  2. Cook the sweetbreads in salted, acidulated water for 20 minutes.

  3. Cool the sweetbreads.

  4. Cut the sweetbreads into small cubes.

  5. Marinate the sweetbreads.

  6. Drain the French dressing from the sweetbreads.

  7. Chill the cucumber cut into dice in ice water.

  8. Dry the cucumber dice on a cloth.

Assemble and serve

  1. Scatter the sweetbreads with the cucumber over the lettuce.

  2. Press the jelly mayonnaise through a pastry bag with a small tube to create stars throughout the lettuce.

  3. Serve immediately.

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. Lettuce + cucumbertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,409 recipes

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

  2. Cabbage + lettucetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together622 recipes

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

  3. Cabbage + cucumbertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together722 recipes

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

  4. Vinegar + cucumbertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,734 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).

  5. Cabbage + vinegartop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,924 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
Provide the tender, mild-flavoured main protein that forms the body of the salad.
Cucumber
Adds crisp texture and fresh moisture that contrasts with the soft sweetbreads.
Firm jelly mayonnaise
Adds richness and fat, and holds its shape when piped into stars.
Cabbage lettuce
Forms a crisp, leafy base that holds the other components.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the dish and balances the richness of the mayonnaise.

The step that matters

Press the jelly mayonnaise through a pastry bag. Mayonnaise must be firm and cold to hold its shape through the tube. If it is soft or warm, the emulsion loosens and the stars spread and lose definition.

Swap the cabbage

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lettuce, vinegar, cucumber):

  1. Mustardfits better
  2. Beetrootfits better
  3. Radishfits better
  4. Cabbagethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lettuce, vinegar, cucumber. 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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