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Sweet-breads

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and peas are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,005 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Sweet-breads

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Soak the sweetbreads in cold water for 1 hour, changing the water twice.

  2. Boil the sweetbreads in water for 10 minutes until firm, then place them in cold water until needed.

  3. In a saucepan, cover the sweetbreads with stock and simmer for nearly 1 hour.

  4. Remove the sweetbreads and place them on a hot dish.

  5. Take the gravy off the heat, then gradually stir in the egg yolk and cream.

  6. Heat the sauce until it thickens, but do not let it boil.

  7. Before serving, add the lemon juice and pour the sauce over the sweetbreads.

  8. Serve with a dish of green peas.

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. Lemon + peastop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,005 recipes

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

  2. Egg + lemontop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

  3. Egg + peastop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,065 recipes

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

  4. Egg + creamtop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together42,166 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  5. Cream + peastop 29% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

Egg and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 44,316 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

Swap the peas

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, cream, lemon):

  1. Pistachiofits better
  2. Almondfits better
  3. Walnutfits better
  4. Peasthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, cream, lemon. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

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