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Brains or Sweetbreads, Spanish Style

A Spanish-style dish of boiled brains or sweetbreads sautéed with onions, peppers, garlic, tomatoes, and potatoes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and garlic match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 29,058 recipes. Both carry furaneol, which smells caramel, strawberry. The science ↓

Brains or Sweetbreads, Spanish Style

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Skin and wash the brains or sweetbreads.

  2. Boil in salted water for 20 minutes.

Cook

  1. In a skillet, melt the butter over medium heat.

  2. Add the chopped onion, red pepper, and garlic; sauté until fragrant.

  3. Add the sliced tomatoes and season with salt and pepper; cook until well done.

  4. Stir in the diced potatoes and thinly sliced brains; simmer briefly.

  5. Serve very hot.

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. Onion + garlictop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together29,058 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  2. Garlic + tomatotop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,076 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  3. Potato + oniontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

  4. Potato + garlictop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,517 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  5. Potato + tomatotop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,798 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Brains or sweetbreads
Provide the main tender, rich protein that forms the body of the dish.
Potatoes
Add starch and body, giving the dish a soft, filling texture.
Tomatoes
Add moisture and acidity that break down into a sauce as they cook.
Onion
Adds savory sweetness and aroma as it softens in the butter.
Butter
Carries flavor and fat, helping the onion and aromatics cook without sticking.

The step that matters

Boil the brains before combining. Boiling firms the delicate tissue so it holds its shape when sliced and simmered. Skipping or shortening the boil can leave it soft and prone to breaking apart in the pan.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (potato, butter, onion, pepper, garlic):

  1. Chivefits better
  2. Spinachfits about as well
  3. Broccolifits about as well
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, butter, onion, pepper, garlic. 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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