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Calf Sweet Breads, Fried

Fried calf sweetbreads seasoned with salt and pepper, dipped in egg, coated in breadcrumbs, and fried in lard and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Calf Sweet Breads, Fried

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Trim the soaked sweetbreads free from fat and skin.

  2. Boil in water with salt for 15 minutes.

  3. Transfer to cold water for 5 minutes.

  4. Store in a cold place until ready to use.

Coat and fry

  1. Cut the boiled sweetbreads into 2‑inch square pieces.

  2. Dip each piece in seasoned egg, then roll in bread crumbs.

  3. Fry in a mixture of lard and butter until golden.

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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

  4. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Calf sweetbreads
Main protein; boiling firms the tender meat so the pieces hold their shape when fried.
Eggs
Bind the bread crumb coating to the sweetbreads so it stays attached during frying.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden outer crust when fried.
Lard and butter
Fat for frying that conducts heat and browns the coating while adding rich flavor.

The step that matters

Boiling the sweetbreads. Boiling firms the tissue and sets it before cutting and coating. Undercooked or unfirm sweetbreads may fall apart when dipped and fried, so the boil and cold-water rest should be followed closely.

“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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