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Sweetbread Salad

A salad of boiled sweetbreads, mushrooms, celery, and mayonnaise.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 16,012 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Sweetbread Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the sweetbreads

  1. Soak the sweetbreads in tepid water for 30 minutes.

  2. Boil the sweetbreads in salted water for 20 minutes, ensuring the water is boiling before adding them.

  3. Transfer the sweetbreads to cold water to harden.

  4. Remove the outer casing and little pipes from the sweetbreads.

  5. Cut the sweetbreads into small dice.

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Chop the mushrooms and celery into small pieces, equal in amount.

Make the mayonnaise

  1. Beat the egg yolks in a bowl.

  2. Add oil gradually while stirring until the mixture thickens to a pale yellow.

  3. Add a few drops of vinegar to the mayonnaise. Stir the mixture.

  4. Add more oil until the mayonnaise becomes very thick.

  5. Mix in the vinegar, coarse sea salt, white pepper, and cayenne if desired.

Assemble and garnish

  1. Combine the sweetbreads, mushrooms, and celery with the mayonnaise.

  2. Reserve some mayonnaise for the top.

  3. Toss the mixture thoroughly.

  4. Spread the reserved mayonnaise on top.

  5. Garnish with white celery tips and olives.

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. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Mushroom + olivetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,571 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans,trans-2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

  3. Celery + olivetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,667 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  4. Vinegar + olivetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,297 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, fruity).

  5. Mushroom + celerytop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,006 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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 meat that forms the body of the salad.
Egg yolks
Emulsify with the oil to form the thick mayonnaise that binds the salad.
Oil
Forms the fat phase of the mayonnaise, giving it richness and body.
Mushrooms
Add earthy flavour and a soft, moist texture to the salad.
Celery
Adds crisp texture and fresh flavour that contrasts the soft sweetbreads.

The step that matters

Adding the oil to the egg yolks. Oil must be added slowly while stirring so the yolk lecithin can emulsify it; adding it too fast breaks the mixture into a runny, separated sauce that will not thicken.

Swap the white pepper

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

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mushroom, celery, egg, vinegar, pepper, olive. 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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