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Skewer of Sweet-breads

Skewered sweetbreads fried in lard, served with sauce and parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Skewer of Sweet-breads

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Parboil the sweetbreads as described.

  2. Cut them into slices or scallops about ½ inch thick.

  3. Sprinkle with pepper and coarse sea salt.

  4. Dip in egg, then coat with bread crumbs.

  5. Skewer two slices of sweetbreads alternating with two thin slices of bacon.

Fry and serve

  1. Fry in boiling lard until golden.

  2. Serve with tomato or cream sauce in the center and garnish with parsley.

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 + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Pepper + tomatotop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Tomato + parsleytop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,398 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Bread + tomatotop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,013 recipes

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

  5. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (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 tender, delicate meat that forms the body of the skewers.
Egg
Acts as a binder so the bread crumbs adhere to the sweetbreads.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp golden coating that protects the meat during frying.
Bacon
Adds fat and savory flavor that bastes the sweetbreads as they cook.

The step that matters

Fry in boiling lard until golden. The lard must be hot enough to crisp the breading quickly; if it is too cool, the coating absorbs grease and turns soggy before the sweetbreads cook through.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, egg, bread, parsley):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, egg, bread, parsley. 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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