Name: Broiled Sweet-breads with Oranges
Ingredients: largest sweetbreads; 1 orange; pepper; coarse sea salt; melted butter; 1 additional orange for juice; oranges for garnish

Why it works: Orange and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,402 recipes. Both carry ethyl 2-methylbutyrate, which smells fruity, apple. The science ↓

Broiled Sweet-breads with Oranges

Ingredients

Directions

Parboil the sweetbreads until cooked, then let them cool.
Make two or three gashes in each sweetbread.
Squeeze the juice of one orange over the sweetbreads, ensuring it runs into the gashes.
Sprinkle with pepper and coarse sea salt.
Broil over hot coals, basting frequently with melted butter.
Just before serving, squeeze the juice of another orange over the sweetbreads.
Garnish with slices of orange.

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.

Orange + peppertop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,402 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).
Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together85,593 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Orange + buttertop 23% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together7,301 recipes

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