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Curried Attelets

A dish of sweetbreads and veal or mutton cooked with butter, curry powder, lemon juice, and salt, then broiled with oysters and bread crumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Curried Attelets

Ingredients

Directions

Make the filling

  1. In a stewpan, combine sweetbreads, veal or mutton, butter, curry powder, lemon juice, and salt.

  2. Set over low heat and cook until half done.

  3. Add blanched oysters and their liquor, simmer for 5 minutes.

  4. Transfer to a dish and let cool.

Skewer and broil

  1. Skewer the mixture alternately on small wooden or silver skewers.

  2. Dip skewers in the oyster liquor and coat with bread crumbs.

  3. Broil over a clear fire until browned.

  4. Serve with curry sauce underneath.

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. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  2. Butter + oystertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,184 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

  3. Oyster + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,545 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  5. Veal + lemontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,580 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

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

What each ingredient does

Throat sweetbreads
Provide a tender, creamy body that holds the skewered mixture together.
Veal or mutton
Adds meaty substance and bulk to the filling.
Fresh butter
Carries the curry flavour and keeps the filling moist during cooking.
Curry powder
Supplies the dominant spiced aroma of the dish.
Blanched oysters
Contribute a briny, savoury flavour and soft texture to the filling.
Fine bread crumbs
Form a crisp, browned coating when broiled.

The step that matters

Broil over a clear fire until browned. Broiling briefly and at high heat browns the bread crumb coating through the Maillard reaction while the filling heats. Too long or too low a heat dries the meat and oysters out, so watch the skewers closely.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, butter, oyster, bread):

  1. Lemonthe original
  2. Applefits about as well
  3. Figfits less well
  4. Grapefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, butter, oyster, bread. 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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