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Heart Sweetbreads

Heart sweetbreads simmered with onions, bacon, stock, and butter, then baked and served over stewed peas.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and peas are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,460 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Heart Sweetbreads

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Remove gills from the sweetbreads and soak them in cold water for 30 minutes.

Braise

  1. Place onions in the center of a dish and cover with thin layers of fat bacon.

  2. Moisten with 1 pint of good stock and cover with a round of buttered paper.

  3. Cover with a lid and boil the sweetbreads on the stove.

  4. Transfer to a 350°F (175°C) oven or a moderate fire, basting frequently for about 20 minutes.

  5. Remove the lid and paper, then return to the oven to dry the surface and glaze nicely.

Serve

  1. Serve on a bed of stewed peas.

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. Onion + peastop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,460 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  2. Onion + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Butter + peastop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,887 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Sweetbreads
Main protein; gentle moist cooking keeps them tender while the surface glazes.
Fat bacon
Melting fat over the onions adds savoury flavour and moisture to the dish.
Onions
Sweet, aromatic base that flavours the stock and the sweetbreads as they cook.
Good stock
Liquid that gently steams the sweetbreads and carries flavour into the dish.
Butter
Buttered paper keeps the surface moist and helps it brown lightly.

The step that matters

Drying and glazing after removing the lid. Once the lid and paper come off, the surface can dry out or over-brown quickly. Watch it closely so it glazes golden rather than scorching, while the inside stays moist.

Swap the peas

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

  1. Sesamefits better
  2. Peanutfits better
  3. Almondfits better
  4. Peasthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, butter. 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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