Name: Sweetbreads As Cutlets
Ingredients: heart sweetbreads or throat sweetbreads; water; butter or lard; juice of 1 lemon; white pepper; coarse sea salt

Why it works: Butter and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,227 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Sweetbreads As Cutlets

Ingredients

Directions

Blanch the sweetbreads in boiling water for about 10 minutes.
Cool them in cold water, then remove and dry with a cloth.
Cut the sweetbreads into 12 or 14 long pieces for cutlets.
In a cutlet pan, heat butter or lard, then add lemon juice, white pepper, and salt.
Cook the cutlets without coloring them, then place on white paper to absorb excess grease.
Arrange the cutlets on a serving dish and pour sauce in the center.

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.

Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together41,227 recipes

Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
Lemon + white peppertop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together1,658 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
Butter + white peppertop 28% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together3,814 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).