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Sweet-bread Salad

A salad of boiled and fried sweetbreads mixed with lettuce and dressed with an egg yolk vinaigrette.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Lettuce and mustard match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,356 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Sweet-bread Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the sweetbreads

  1. Boil the sweetbreads for 20 minutes.

  2. Drop them into cold milk and wipe dry.

  3. Split the sweetbreads and fry in butter until brown.

  4. Cut them into small pieces and mix with lettuce.

Make the dressing

  1. Make a dressing by beating the egg yolks, vinegar, mustard, salt, and olive oil, adding the oil in a fine stream.

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. Lettuce + mustardtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,356 recipes

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

  2. Lettuce + olivetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,580 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  3. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  4. Vinegar + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Mustard + olivetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,950 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Sweetbreads
Provide the tender, mild meat that forms the body of the salad.
Butter
Browns the sweetbreads in the pan, adding color and a rich, nutty flavor.
Egg yolks
Emulsify the oil and vinegar into a smooth, thick dressing.
Olive oil
Adds fat and richness to the dressing, carried by the emulsion.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the dressing and balances the richness.
Lettuce
Adds crisp texture and freshness as the base for the salad.

The step that matters

Adding the oil in a fine stream. Oil must be added slowly while beating the egg yolks so it disperses into tiny droplets. Adding it too fast can break the emulsion, leaving a thin, separated dressing.

Swap the lettuce

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, butter, egg, vinegar, mustard, olive):

  1. Chivefits about as well
  2. Shallotfits about as well
  3. Capsicumfits about as well
  4. Lettucethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, butter, egg, vinegar, mustard, olive. 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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