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Browned Sweet-breads

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Browned Sweet-breads

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

  1. Soak the sweetbreads in cold water for 1 hour.

  2. Place them in a saucepan, cover with fresh cold water, and boil for 20 minutes.

  3. Prepare a bowl of cold water; after boiling, transfer the sweetbreads to the cold water and wash them well.

  4. Make an incision in the side of each sweetbread and squeeze a little lemon juice inside.

  5. Dip the sweetbreads in milk, then roll them in bread crumbs on a sheet of paper.

  6. Beat the egg on a plate and brush it over the sweetbreads, then roll them in the bread crumbs again.

  7. Heat clarified fat in a frying pan until it smokes, then fry the sweetbreads for 8 minutes, turning once.

  8. Spread an equal quantity of the veal mixture over each fried sweetbread, sprinkle with chopped mushrooms, and bake in a moderate oven (350°F / 175°C) for 10 minutes.

  9. Serve hot, garnished with sprigs of parsley.

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 + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  2. Nutmeg + lemontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  4. Nutmeg + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  5. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

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

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Lemonthe original
  2. Vanillafits about as well
  3. Raisinfits about as well
  4. Figfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, cream, egg, butter, flour, nutmeg, pepper. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

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