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Fried Sweetbreads

Fried sweetbreads served hot with tomato sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Pork and tomato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,843 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Fried Sweetbreads

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Parboil and blanch the sweetbreads, then chill them.

  2. Lard the sweetbreads with fat salt pork.

  3. Alternatively, slice the sweetbreads after parboiling, roll them in beaten egg and cracker crumbs, and set on ice for an hour.

Fry and serve

  1. Fry the sweetbreads in the fat that renders from the pork in a hot frying pan.

  2. Fry the coated sweetbreads in deep fat until golden brown.

  3. Serve dry and hot 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. Pork + tomatotop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,843 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Pork + saucetop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,666 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Pork + eggtop 30% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,387 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

  5. Egg + tomatotop 34% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,890 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Sweetbreads
Main protein; parboiling and chilling firm them so they hold their shape while frying.
Fat salt pork
Adds fat and savoury flavour, and its rendered fat fries the sweetbreads.
Beaten egg
Binds the cracker crumbs to the sweetbreads so the coating adheres during frying.
Cracker crumbs
Forms a crisp, golden-brown coating when fried in fat.

The step that matters

Chill before frying. Parboiling and chilling firm the sweetbreads so they hold their shape and coating in hot fat instead of breaking apart.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pork, egg, sauce):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, egg, 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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