Why it works: Butter and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 21% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 85,593 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓
Broiled Sweetbreads
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Blanch or wash and trim the sweetbreads.
Split the sweetbreads and dip them in melted butter seasoned with pepper and coarse sea salt.
Place them between the bars of a double wire gridiron.
Broil over a hot fire (400°F / 200°C) until they are a delicate brown color on both sides.
Serve hot immediately, as they deteriorate if left to stand.
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.
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Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together85,593 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
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