Skip to main content
Main

Roast Sweetbreads

Roasted sweetbreads stuffed with fat salt pork, simmered in veal stock and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Veal and pork are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,930 recipes. Both carry 4-heptenal, which smells creamy, biscuit. The science ↓

Roast Sweetbreads

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Parboil the sweetbreads, then blanch them in cold water.

  2. Drain and pierce 3-4 holes in each sweetbread.

  3. Insert strips of fat salt pork into the holes, allowing them to project ½ inch on each side.

Roast

  1. Place the sweetbreads in a roasting pan.

  2. Pour the weak veal stock over the sweetbreads and rub them with melted butter.

  3. Cover and bake at 350°F (175°C) for 25 minutes.

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. Veal + porktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,930 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

  2. Butter + porktop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,933 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  3. Veal + buttertop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,381 recipes

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

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 becomes soft and succulent when gently cooked.
Veal stock
Adds moisture and savory depth, helping keep the sweetbreads from drying out in the oven.
Butter
Adds richness and promotes gentle browning on the sweetbreads' surface.
Salt pork fat
Bastes the sweetbreads from within as it melts, adding moisture and savory flavor.

The step that matters

Blanch in cold water after parboiling. Cold water stops the cooking quickly and firms the sweetbreads, making them easier to drain, pierce and handle without tearing while keeping the texture clean.

“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.

You might also like

Pork CakePork Cake107 recipesRoast PorkRoast Pork82 recipesVeal PattiesVeal Patties50 recipesBeef, Mutton, or Veal BrothBeef, Mutton, or Veal Broth6 recipes