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Veal Sweet-bread

Veal sweetbread coated in cracker crumbs, pan‑fried, served with a veal‑gravy and lemon sauce and toasted bread.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and lemon 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 ↓

Veal Sweet-bread

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the sweetbreads

  1. Parboil the sweetbreads for a few minutes.

  2. Place the sweetbreads in cold water.

  3. Wipe the sweetbreads dry.

Coat and cook

  1. Beat the egg yolks in a bowl.

  2. Grate the cracker crumbs onto a plate.

  3. Dip the sweetbreads in the egg yolks.

  4. Coat the sweetbreads in the cracker crumbs.

  5. Cook the sweetbreads in a little butter, seasoned with pepper and salt, until golden brown.

Make the gravy and serve

  1. Add a little veal gravy and lemon juice to the pan drippings.

  2. Toast the thin slices of bread.

  3. Dip the toasted bread in the gravy.

  4. Place the bread on top of the sweetbreads.

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

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

  2. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  4. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

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

  5. Pepper + breadtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,964 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Sweetbreads
Main protein; parboiling firms them so they hold their shape during coating and frying.
Egg yolks
Act as a binder so the cracker crumbs stick to the sweetbreads.
Cracker crumbs
Form a crisp, golden coating that browns when the sweetbreads are cooked in butter.
Butter
Conducts heat for frying and browns the coating, adding richness.
Veal gravy
Adds savoury depth and moisture to the dish when mixed with the pan drippings.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich butter, gravy and sweetbreads.

The step that matters

Cook the sweetbreads until golden brown. The coating needs enough heat and time in butter to brown and crisp without burning. Moderate heat lets the crumbs toast while the sweetbread inside cooks through.

“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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