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Skewer of Sweet-breads

Skewered sweetbreads with bacon, breaded and fried, 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.

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

  3. Sprinkle the slices with pepper and coarse sea salt.

Coat and skewer

  1. Dip in beaten egg.

  2. Coat with bread crumbs.

  3. Skewer two slices of sweetbreads alternating with two thin square slices of bacon.

Fry and serve

  1. Fry the skewers in boiling lard until golden brown.

  2. Serve with tomato sauce or cream sauce in the center.

  3. 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
Main protein; parboiling first firms them so they hold their shape while frying.
Egg
Binds the bread crumbs to the sweetbread slices so the coating stays on during frying.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden coating that browns during frying.
Bacon
Adds fat and savory flavor as it cooks between the sweetbread slices.
Lard
Hot frying fat that conducts heat evenly and browns the coating.

The step that matters

Fry the skewers in boiling lard until golden brown. The fat must be hot enough to crisp the breadcrumb coating quickly. If it is too cool, the coating absorbs fat and turns greasy before it browns.

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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