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Ris De Veau- Sweetbreads

Fried sweetbread coated in breadcrumbs and served with tomato sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley 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 ↓

Ris De Veau- Sweetbreads

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the sweetbreads

  1. Soak the sweetbreads in cold water for 2 to 3 hours.

  2. Place the sweetbreads in a stewpan with enough cold water to cover them.

  3. Bring the water to a boil.

  4. Plunge the sweetbreads into cold water.

  5. Let the sweetbreads sit in the cold water for 30 minutes.

  6. Drain the sweetbreads well.

  7. Cut the blanched sweetbread into ½-inch thick slices.

  8. Season the slices with pepper and salt.

Bread the slices

  1. Beat the egg and mix in the chopped parsley and melted butter.

  2. Dip the sweetbread slices into the egg mixture.

  3. Coat the slices with breadcrumbs.

  4. Repeat the dipping and coating process until all slices are coated.

  5. Shape the coated slices.

Fry and serve

  1. Fry the shaped slices in boiling fat until golden brown.

  2. Drain the fried sweetbreads.

  3. Serve the fried sweetbreads on toast or a hot dish.

  4. Pour hot tomato sauce around the sweetbreads.

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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Pepper + tomatotop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  3. Parsley + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,398 recipes

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

  4. Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Tomato + saucetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,469 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Butter and sauce barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 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

Sweetbreads
The main ingredient; blanching firms it so it can be sliced and coated neatly.
Egg
Binds the breadcrumbs to the slices so the coating stays in place during frying.
Breadcrumbs
Form a crisp, golden-brown crust when fried.
Melted butter
Adds richness and fat to the egg mixture, carrying flavor into the coating.
Chopped parsley
Adds fresh, herbal aroma that brightens the rich coating.
Hot tomato sauce
Adds acidity and moisture alongside the crisp, rich slices.

The step that matters

Fry the shaped slices in boiling fat until golden brown.. The breadcrumb coating browns quickly, so the fat must be hot enough to crisp the crust evenly, but not so hot that the outside burns before the sweetbread is heated through.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, egg, parsley, butter, sauce. 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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