Name: Croquets of Sweetbread
Ingredients: sweetbreads; veloute sauce; parsley; fried greens; mushrooms (optional)

Why it works: Parsley and mushroom are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,132 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Croquets of Sweetbread

Ingredients

Directions

Cut the cooked sweetbreads into small dice.
Prepare a good veloute sauce and bring it to a boil.
Add the sweetbread dice to the veloute and boil briefly to infuse the flavor.
Transfer the mixture to a plate and let it cool.
Once cooled, shape the mixture into rounds, ovals, or logs, avoiding pear shapes.
Serve with parsley and fried greens in the center. If using, mix diced mushrooms with the croquets.

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.

Parsley + mushroomtop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together6,132 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Sauce + mushroomtop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together4,480 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Sauce + parsleytop 23% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together6,693 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).