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Lamb's Sweetbreads

Lamb's sweetbreads are boiled, pressed, coated in egg and breadcrumbs, then fried and served with gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper 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 ↓

Lamb's Sweetbreads

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Put the sweetbreads into boiling water and boil for 10 minutes.

  2. Drain and press them.

  3. Brush the sweetbreads with egg.

Coat and fry

  1. Cover them well with bread crumbs mixed with a little pepper, salt, and chopped parsley.

  2. Fry until golden brown and serve with gravy.

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. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  3. Parsley + breadtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,588 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Bread + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,964 recipes

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

  5. Parsley + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,765 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Sweetbreads
Tender main protein that is cooked gently first, then fried for a crisp exterior.
Egg
Acts as a binder so the bread crumb coating sticks to the sweetbreads.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden-brown crust when fried.

The step that matters

Pressing the sweetbreads after boiling. Pressing removes excess moisture so the egg and bread crumbs adhere evenly and the coating fries crisp rather than steaming or falling off in the pan.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Parsleythe original
  2. Nutmegfits about as well
  3. Marjoramfits less well
  4. Sagefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, egg, pepper. 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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