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Sweetbread Salad

A salad of boiled sweetbreads mixed with tomato pulp, seasoned with pepper, salt, sugar, mustard, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Tomato and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,923 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Sweetbread Salad

1 tomato per person

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the sweetbreads

  1. Clean the sweetbreads thoroughly and boil them in salted water until tender.

  2. Once cool, chop the sweetbreads into small pieces.

Prepare the tomatoes

  1. Select firm, ripe tomatoes, wash and dry them without bruising.

  2. Slice off the tops of the tomatoes and scoop out the pulp carefully.

  3. Chop the tomato pulp finely and mix it with the sweetbreads.

Season and serve

  1. Season the mixture with pepper, coarse sea salt, sugar, mustard, and vinegar to taste.

  2. Fill the tomato shells with the sweetbread mixture and serve cold.

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. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  2. Mustard + vinegartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Pepper + mustardtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

  4. Tomato + mustardtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,482 recipes

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

  5. Pepper + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Sweetbreads
Provide the tender, meaty filling that forms the body of the salad.
Tomatoes
Serve as edible shells and add juiciness and fresh acidity to the filling.
Vinegar
Adds sharp acidity that balances the richness of the sweetbreads.
Mustard
Adds pungent flavor that cuts through the richness of the sweetbreads.

The step that matters

Boil the sweetbreads until tender. Sweetbreads must be fully cooked through and tender before chopping; undercooked sweetbreads stay rubbery and firm, while the gentle simmer in salted water keeps them moist.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, sugar, mustard, vinegar):

  1. Horseradishfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Radishfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, sugar, mustard, vinegar. 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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