Name: Sweet-bread Fritters
Ingredients: sweetbreads; coarse sea salt; black pepper; grated nutmeg; finely chopped parsley; lemon juice; French fritter batter; lard for frying; parsley for garnish

Why it works: Parsley and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Sweet-bread Fritters

Ingredients

Directions

Parboil the sweetbreads and cut them into slices about ½ inch thick.
Sprinkle the slices with coarse sea salt, black pepper, grated nutmeg, finely chopped parsley, and a few drops of lemon juice.
Dip each slice into French fritter batter.
Fry them in boiling-hot lard until golden.
Test the lard by adding a piece of bread or batter; it should turn yellow quickly.
Drain the fritters well and arrange them neatly on a platter.
Garnish with fried parsley by briefly frying parsley in the lard.

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 + lemontop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together14,037 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together34,122 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together27,047 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Nutmeg + parsleytop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together5,062 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Nutmeg + lemontop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together11,318 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).