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Dutch Sweetbreads

Dutch Sweetbreads are veal and suet meatballs coated in breadcrumbs, fried, simmered, and served with a lemon‑flavored sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and pepper 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 ↓

Dutch Sweetbreads

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mixture

  1. Pass the veal and suet through a meat grinder twice.

  2. Soak the breadcrumbs in milk, then squeeze them dry.

  3. Melt the butter in a pan, add the breadcrumbs, and cook until they form a paste.

  4. Remove the paste from heat.

  5. Add the ground meat, beaten egg, seasonings, and lemon rind.

Shape and fry

  1. Shape the mixture into small sweetbreads.

  2. Dip each sweetbread in egg, then in breadcrumbs.

  3. Fry the sweetbreads quickly in hot fat.

Simmer and serve

  1. Place the sweetbreads in a pan and half cover them with stock.

  2. Simmer for about 20 minutes.

  3. Mix the flour with cold water and pour the mixture into the hot stock.

  4. Let the stock boil, then add seasoning and lemon juice.

  5. Pour the sauce over the sweetbreads.

  6. Garnish with curled bacon.

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. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Milk + lemontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 recipes

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

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Veal
Forms the main body of the sweetbreads and gives them their meaty texture.
Breadcrumbs
Absorb moisture and bind the mixture so the sweetbreads hold their shape.
Egg
Binds the mixture and forms a coating that helps the crumbs adhere.
Suet
Adds fat and richness, keeping the cooked meat moist and tender.
Butter
Cooks the breadcrumbs into a paste and adds richness to the mixture.
Flour
Thickens the stock into a smooth sauce when boiled.

The step that matters

Frying the sweetbreads quickly in hot fat. A hot fat seals the crumb coating quickly so it browns and holds its shape, while a slow fry lets the coating absorb grease and fall apart.

“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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