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Larded Sweetbreads

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 ↓

Larded Sweetbreads

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

  1. Trim the sweetbreads and remove all fat. Insert 5 lardoons into each sweetbread.

  2. Dredge with coarse sea salt, black pepper, and flour. Place on a rack in a baking pan.

  3. Bake at 400°F (200°C) for 30 minutes, basting with brown stock.

  4. Drain the peas and rinse in cold water. Place in fresh cold water and bring to a boil.

  5. Drain the peas again, then add a little butter, black pepper, coarse sea salt, and a pinch of sugar.

  6. Heat the peas and pile them on a platter. Cover with white sauce and place the sweetbreads on top.

  7. 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. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + parsleytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Peas + parsleytop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,885 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  5. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

Swap the peas

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, flour, butter, sugar, parsley):

  1. Chickpeafits better
  2. Chestnutfits better
  3. Almondfits better
  4. Peasthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, flour, butter, sugar, parsley. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

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