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Sweet Breads

A dish of sweetbreads fried with bread crumbs, served in a cream sauce with pepper, sea salt, parsley, and optional mushrooms.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 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 ↓

Sweet Breads

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Scald the sweetbreads in salted water and remove the stringy parts.

  2. Soak in cold water for a few minutes, then dry with a towel.

  3. Dip in egg and coat with bread crumbs.

Cook and serve

  1. Fry in butter until browned, then place in a hot dish.

  2. In the pan, combine sweet cream, a little pepper, coarse sea salt, and chopped parsley.

  3. Add flour and bring to a boil, then pour over the sweetbreads.

  4. Add mushrooms if desired.

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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Butter + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  4. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  5. Bread + mushroomtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (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; the dish's substance and texture come from this tender offal.
Egg
Binds the bread crumb coating so it adheres to the sweetbreads.
Bread crumbs
Forms a crisp, browned coating when fried.
Butter
Fat for frying that promotes browning and adds richness.
Sweet cream
Adds richness and moisture to the pan sauce.
Flour
Thickens the cream mixture into a sauce when boiled.

The step that matters

Fry in butter until browned. The coating needs enough heat to brown without burning, since the crumbs and butter darken quickly. Browning builds flavour and a crisp surface, and the sweetbreads should be dry first so they fry rather than steam.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, bread, butter, cream, pepper, flour, mushroom):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Parsleythe original
  3. Thymefits about as well
  4. Tarragonfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, bread, butter, cream, pepper, flour, mushroom. 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.

More sweetbread recipes

Salad 73Croquettes 61Fried 37Fricassee 27Broiled 19Pie 19 See all 37 →

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