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Salad

Sweetbread Salad

A salad of diced sweetbreads with peas, mushrooms, and a vinaigrette, finished with mayonnaise and served on lettuce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Peas and lettuce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,293 recipes. Both carry 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells green bell pepper, earthy. The science ↓

Sweetbread Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the salad

  1. Dice the sweetbreads.

  2. Whisk salt, pepper, and a little vinegar; add oil and more vinegar until all are used.

  3. Combine the mixture with the sweetbreads, peas, and mushrooms.

Serve

  1. Just before serving, stir in a little mayonnaise and serve the salad in lettuce, topping with mayonnaise.

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. Peas + lettucetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,293 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  2. Peas + mushroomtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together890 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  3. Mushroom + lettucetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together292 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  4. Vinegar + lettucetop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,370 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Vinegar + mushroomtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,070 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-methylphenol (smoky, clove).

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

What each ingredient does

Sweetbreads
Provide the main meaty protein and tender texture of the salad.
Oil
Adds richness and carries the seasoning, giving the dressing a smooth body.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the dressing and balances the richness of oil and mayonnaise.
Mayonnaise
Adds creaminess and fat that coats the salad and moistens the sweetbreads.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (vinegar, peas, mushroom, lettuce):

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Capersfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, peas, mushroom, lettuce. 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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