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Sweet Breads with Tomatoes

Sweetbreads simmered in a tomato gravy served hot.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and tomato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,923 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Sweet Breads with Tomatoes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the sweetbreads

  1. Place sweetbreads in scalding water for 5 minutes.

  2. Transfer sweetbreads to cold water.

  3. Skin the sweetbreads without breaking them.

Make the stew

  1. Put sweetbreads in a stew pan with water.

  2. Season the stew with coarse sea salt and black pepper.

  3. Cook the stew on low heat.

  4. Mix flour with butter.

  5. Stir the mixture into the gravy.

  6. Remove sweetbreads from the gravy.

Finish and serve

  1. Pour the gravy into the stewed tomatoes.

  2. Boil the mixture for a few minutes.

  3. Pour the tomato gravy over the sweetbreads.

  4. Serve hot.

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. Pepper + tomatotop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  2. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Pepper + flourtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

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

  5. Butter + tomatotop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,918 recipes

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

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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
Provide the tender, delicate meat that forms the main body of the dish.
Butter
Adds richness and flavor, and with flour helps thicken the gravy.
Flour
Thickens the gravy when cooked with butter, giving it body.
Stewed tomatoes
Supply acidity and moisture, forming the tomato base of the gravy.

The step that matters

Adding the flour and butter mixture to the gravy. If the flour is not cooked enough or is added unevenly, it can leave lumps or a raw starchy taste. Stirring it in smoothly and simmering lets the starch hydrate and thicken the gravy evenly.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, flour, butter. 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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