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Larded Sweetbreads, Stewed

Stewed sweetbreads larded with salt pork, simmered in gravy with tomato sauce, lemon juice, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Larded Sweetbreads, Stewed

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the sweetbreads

  1. Parboil the sweetbreads in boiling water for 5 minutes.

  2. Transfer them to ice-cold water for 5 minutes to firm up.

  3. Wipe the sweetbreads dry and set aside to cool.

  4. Lard the sweetbreads with the strips of pork, passing them through so they project on both sides.

Stew and finish

  1. Place the sweetbreads in a saucepan and cover with cold gravy.

  2. Stew for about 25 minutes after the boil begins.

  3. Remove the sweetbreads and thicken the gravy with browned flour.

  4. Add catsup, lemon juice, and pepper to the gravy.

  5. Serve the sweetbreads on a hot dish, pouring the gravy over them.

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 + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  2. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Tomato + lemontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,592 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  5. Pork + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,121 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Sweetbreads
Parboiling and chilling firm them, and the stewing gives a tender, meaty texture.
Salt pork
Lardons add fat and savoury flavour as they melt into the sweetbreads during stewing.
Gravy
Provides the cooking liquid and body for the sauce that coats the sweetbreads.
Catsup
Adds sweetness and acidity to the gravy.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich gravy.

The step that matters

Lard(ing) the sweetbreads through both sides. Strips must pass fully through and project on both sides so the pork fat keeps the sweetbreads moist and seasoned during the long stew. Loose or shallow lardons can melt out or leave the centre dry.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Avocadofits better
  2. Limefits better
  3. Mangofits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, tomato, pepper. 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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