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Dutch Sweetbreads

A Dutch dish of veal and suet shaped into kidney shapes, coated in egg and breadcrumbs, and fried.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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Why it works: Bread and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,466 recipes. Both carry 2-undecenal, which smells sweet. The science ↓

Dutch Sweetbreads

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mixture

  1. Beat the veal and suet in a mortar until well combined.

  2. Soak the bread in milk, then mix it with the meat and salt.

Shape and coat

  1. Shape the mixture into kidney shapes.

  2. Coat each piece with beaten egg and then with bread crumbs.

Fry and serve

  1. Fry in hot oil until light brown.

  2. 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. Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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

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

  3. Veal + breadtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,056 recipes

    Shared aroma: cis-3-hexenol (green, grassy).

  4. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

  5. Veal + milktop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,013 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

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

What each ingredient does

Lean veal
Forms the main body of the mixture, giving the sweetbreads their meaty texture.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the mixture moist and rich as it cooks.
Bread
Soaked in milk, it adds moisture and softness to the mixture.
Egg
Binds the coating so the bread crumbs stick to each piece.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp outer crust that browns when fried.

The step that matters

Fry in hot oil until light brown. The oil must be hot enough to brown the crumb coating quickly. If it is too cool, the coating absorbs oil and turns greasy before the centre is cooked through.

“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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