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Sweetbread Salad

A salad of blanched sweetbreads, lettuce, and a mustard‑vinegar dressing.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Lettuce and mustard match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,356 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Sweetbread Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Blanch the sweetbreads as directed, then boil for 15 minutes. Cool and slice them.

  2. Wash the lettuce in cold salted water and dry it on a clean towel.

Make the dressing

  1. In a bowl, combine the egg yolk, dry mustard, coarse sea salt, black pepper, and vinegar. Mix until smooth.

  2. Gradually stir in oil to form a thick paste, then add a little vinegar to liquefy it.

  3. Continue alternating between adding more oil and vinegar until you have enough dressing.

Assemble and serve

  1. Arrange the lettuce on a salad dish, place the sweetbreads on top, and pour the dressing over them.

  2. Serve the salad 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 + mustardtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,356 recipes

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

  2. Mustard + vinegartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Mustard + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

  4. Lettuce + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,037 recipes

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

  5. Pepper + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 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, meaty main protein that forms the body of the salad.
Raw egg yolk
Emulsifies the oil and vinegar, giving the dressing a thick, creamy body.
Oil
Forms the fat base of the emulsion, adding richness and a smooth texture to the dressing.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that balances the richness of the oil and yolk, and thins the paste.
Dry mustard
Acts as an additional emulsifier and adds a sharp, pungent flavour to the dressing.
Lettuce
Provides crisp, cool leaves that give the salad its base and fresh texture.

The step that matters

Adding the oil to the yolk. Oil must be added slowly while the yolk mixture is whisked, so the fat disperses into fine droplets. Adding it too fast breaks the emulsion, leaving a greasy, separated dressing instead of a thick paste.

Swap the lettuce

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, mustard, pepper, vinegar):

  1. Horseradishfits better
  2. Capsicumfits about as well
  3. Shallotfits about as well
  4. Lettucethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, mustard, pepper, vinegar. 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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