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Fried Sweetbreads

Fried Sweetbreads are sweetbread pieces coated in breadcrumbs and egg white, fried in lard, served with lemon and fried parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Fried Sweetbreads

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Prepare the sweetbreads as directed and cut them into even-sized cubes or slices at least 1 inch thick, or leave them whole.

  2. Dip the sweetbreads first in bread crumbs, then in egg white, and again in the crumbs.

  3. Refrigerate for at least 1 hour before frying.

Fry

  1. Heat lard in a deep pan until boiling, at least 1½ inches deep.

  2. Using a frying basket, carefully add the sweetbreads to the hot lard, ensuring they are fully submerged.

  3. Fry for about 4 minutes until golden brown, then drain on brown paper in the open oven door until dry.

Serve

  1. Serve arranged in a circle on cut paper or a folded napkin, garnished with lemon and fried parsley.

  2. Serve sauces like Tomato Sauce or Tartare in a separate sauceboat.

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. Lemon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  3. Bread + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,588 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Egg + lemontop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

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

  5. Bread + lemontop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,445 recipes

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

Egg and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 44,316 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

Sweetbreads
Main protein; the tender interior is what the crisp coating surrounds.
Bread crumbs or cracker crumbs
Form the crisp, golden coating that browns during frying.
Egg white
Acts as a binder so the crumbs adhere to the sweetbreads.
Lard
Frying fat that conducts heat and browns the coating.

The step that matters

Refrigerate before frying. Chilling firms the breaded coating so it adheres and holds its shape in the hot fat instead of sloughing off or absorbing excess oil.

“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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