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Curried Sweetbreads

Curried sweetbreads simmered in gravy with optional coconut and pickled mango.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Coconut and mango match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 221 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Curried Sweetbreads

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the sweetbreads

  1. Wash and soak the sweetbreads.

  2. Place them in boiling water with a little coarse sea salt and a whole onion.

  3. Simmer for 10 minutes.

  4. If available, substitute weak veal broth for the water.

  5. Remove the sweetbreads and let them cool on a drainer.

  6. Cut the cooled sweetbreads into half-inch slices.

  7. Optionally, flour and lightly fry the slices in butter.

Finish the curry

  1. Or place them in enough curried gravy to cover.

  2. Stew the sweetbreads gently in the gravy for 20 to 30 minutes.

  3. Add lemon juice or chili vinegar to taste.

  4. For added flavor, include freshly grated coconut in the gravy before adding the sweetbreads.

  5. Serve the curry hot.

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. Coconut + mangotop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together221 recipes

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

  2. Lemon + mangotop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together302 recipes

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

  3. Butter + coconuttop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,467 recipes

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

  4. Onion + coconuttop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,831 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

  5. Onion + mangotop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together682 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

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

What each ingredient does

Sweetbreads
Provide the tender, delicate meat that forms the body of the curry.
Curried gravy
Carries the spice and moisture that the sweetbreads absorb during stewing.
Butter
Adds richness and gives the optional floured slices a golden, crisp browned surface.
Lemon juice or chili vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the rich gravy and balances the spices.

The step that matters

Simmer the sweetbreads gently. Sweetbreads are delicate; a hard boil or rapid simmer toughens their proteins and makes them firm and rubbery. Gentle heat keeps them tender.

Swap the coconut

The recipe marks coconut as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (onion, veal, butter, lemon, mango):

  1. Limefits about as well
  2. Coconutthe original
  3. Orangefits about as well
  4. Avocadofits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, veal, butter, lemon, mango. 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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