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I Sweetbreads Fricasseed Brown

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Beef and mushroom are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,232 recipes. Both carry 2,4-nonadienal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

I Sweetbreads Fricasseed Brown

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Cut sweetbreads into walnut-sized pieces.

  2. Dredge in flour and fry until golden brown.

  3. Pour in beef gravy seasoned with salt, pepper, cayenne, and allspice.

  4. Simmer until tender.

  5. Thicken the sauce with flour and butter.

  6. Add mushrooms, truffles, and morels if desired, along with mushroom ketchup.

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. Beef + mushroomtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

  2. Mushroom + truffletop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,900 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

  3. Pepper + allspicetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

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

  5. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 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

Swap the allspice

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, beef, pepper, butter, mushroom, truffle, ketchup):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Allspicethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, beef, pepper, butter, mushroom, truffle, ketchup. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

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