Name: Sweetbreads and Tomatoes
Ingredients: sweetbreads; butter; sweet cream; fresh tomatoes; salt

Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Sweetbreads and Tomatoes

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Parboil the sweetbreads a day before using.
Butter a baking dish and place the sweetbreads inside.
Cover the sweetbreads with sweet cream.
Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven for a few minutes.
Remove from the oven and prepare small slices of fresh tomatoes.
Fry the tomato slices in butter and season with salt.
Cut the sweetbreads into portions the size of the tomato slices before serving.

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.

Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together41,516 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Butter + tomatotop 22% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together6,918 recipes

Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
Cream + tomatotop 32% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together2,034 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).