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Sweetbread Croquettes

Sweetbread croquettes are small fried balls made from sweetbreads, corn starch, water, vinegar, cream, chicken, tomatoes, olives, mushrooms, onions, herbs, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 19 ingredients
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Sweetbread Croquettes

Why it works: Tomato and olive are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 15,539 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Sweetbread Croquettes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the sweetbreads

  1. Parboil the sweetbreads, then stew them slowly in a little soup stock or water.

Make the filling

  1. In a pot, mix corn starch, water, vinegar, cream, chicken, tomatoes, olives, mushrooms, salt, onions, and pot herbs.

  2. Heat the mixture over the fire, stirring until thick.

  3. Season the mixture with salt, pepper, celery, nutmeg, and parsley.

  4. Chop the sweetbreads finely.

  5. Stir the chopped sweetbreads into the mixture and boil for five minutes.

  6. Spread the mixture on a flat dish to cool.

Shape and fry

  1. Cut the cooled mixture into pieces.

  2. Roll the pieces in bread crumbs.

  3. Fry the rolled pieces in hot olive oil.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Tomato + olivetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,539 recipes

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

  2. Chicken + mushroomtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,172 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-butyl acetate (fruity, banana).

  3. Corn + tomatotop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,099 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Olive + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,571 recipes

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

  5. Tomato + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,719 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

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

What each ingredient does

Sweetbreads
Provide the main meaty filling that gives the croquettes their body and flavor.
Corn starch
Thickens the liquid mixture so it sets firm enough to cut and shape.
Cream
Adds richness and softness to the filling, keeping it tender.
Eggs
Bind the coated pieces and help the bread crumbs stick during frying.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden browned crust when fried.
Olive oil
Conducts heat for frying and browns the crumb coating.

The step that matters

Cooling the mixture before cutting. The filling must cool and firm after thickening so the pieces hold their shape; cutting it warm causes it to slump and break apart when rolled and fried.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (corn, vinegar, cream, chicken, tomato, olive, mushroom):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Spinachfits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against corn, vinegar, cream, chicken, tomato, olive, mushroom. 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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