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To Broil Sweetbreads

Broiled sweetbreads served with gravy from boiled calf head, brains, and liver.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 16 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

To Broil Sweetbreads

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the sweetbreads

  1. Split the sweetbreads in half with a sharp knife.

  2. Lay the sweetbreads on a grill and broil both sides for about 3 minutes.

  3. In a saucepan, combine hot water, butter, flour, pepper, salt, and cream. Stir the mixture and bring it to a boil.

  4. Pour the hot sauce over the sweetbreads.

Cook the calf's head

  1. Soak the calf's head in cold water for 2 hours.

  2. Remove the brains from the calf's head and clean the head thoroughly.

  3. Flour a cloth. Tightly wrap the calf's head in the cloth.

  4. Boil the wrapped head in 6 to 8 quarts of water with salt pork for 2 hours.

  5. Tie the brains in a separate cloth. Add the wrapped brains, liver, and lights to the pot.

  6. Boil for an additional 2 hours.

  7. Remove the cloth from the head. Extract the large bones from the head.

  8. Place the head skin side up on a dish to keep warm.

Make the gravy and serve

  1. In a saucepan, combine 1 quart of the boiling liquid, finely chopped liver, prepared brains, butter, flour, pepper, salt, and sweet marjoram. Bring the mixture to a boil.

  2. Add vinegar to the sauce.

  3. Serve the liver and head on a dish. Garnish with scraped horseradish and lemon slices.

  4. Pour some gravy over the head and serve the rest separately.

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. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  2. Pork + livertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,606 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-nonanal (fatty, waxy).

  3. Flour + horseradishtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together743 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Pepper + horseradishtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,646 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

What each ingredient does

Sweetbreads
Main meat; split and broiled so the surface browns while the inside stays tender.
Flour
Thickens the butter and cream sauce so it coats the meat and gravy.
Butter
Adds richness and fat to the sauce, helping it feel smooth on the palate.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness, giving the sauce a softer, smoother body.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens and balances the rich, fatty gravy.
Liver
Adds deep, savory flavor to the gravy when finely chopped and simmered.

The step that matters

Bringing the gravy to a boil with flour and butter. Flour must be cooked in the hot liquid long enough to thicken smoothly. Whisking or stirring while it boils prevents lumps and a raw floury taste.

Swap the horseradish

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, flour, pepper, cream, pork, liver, vinegar):

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Mustardfits better
  3. Onionfits better
  4. Horseradishthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, pepper, cream, pork, liver, vinegar. 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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