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Sweetbreads Like Oystees

Sweetbreads are boiled, mashed, mixed with breadcrumbs, butter, pepper, lemon juice, and eggs, formed into oyster-sized cakes, and fried.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Sweetbreads Like Oystees

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the sweetbreads

  1. Boil the sweetbreads in water with a little salt until tender.

  2. Pound or mash the sweetbreads until fine.

Form the patties

  1. Add bread crumbs, butter, pepper, lemon juice, and beaten eggs to the mixture.

  2. Season the mixture well and combine until it binds together.

  3. Form the mixture into cakes the size of an oyster.

Cook and serve

  1. Fry the cakes until golden brown and serve.

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. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

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

  4. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

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

  5. Bread + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,964 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Sweetbreads
Provide the main body and rich, savory flavor of the patties.
Eggs
Bind the mixture together so the cakes hold their shape.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and give the cakes body and a firmer texture.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the cakes brown when fried.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich sweetbread flavor.

The step that matters

Pound or mash the sweetbreads until fine. Sweetbreads must be broken down evenly so the mixture binds smoothly. Lumps left behind can cause the cakes to crumble when formed and fried.

“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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