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To Fry Sweetbread

Fried sweetbreads served with mushroom ketchup gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Marjoram and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,979 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

To Fry Sweetbread

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Scald the sweetbreads.

  2. Fry them in butter.

  3. Add chopped sweet marjoram and parsley.

  4. Serve with gravy flavored with mushroom ketchup.

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. Marjoram + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,979 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Butter + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  3. Marjoram + mushroomtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together424 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  4. Parsley + mushroomtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,132 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Butter + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

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

What each ingredient does

Sweetbreads
The main protein; scalding firms them so they can be fried cleanly.
Butter
Fat for frying, giving browning and a rich flavor to the outside.
Sweet marjoram
Adds a mild, aromatic herbal flavor to the finished dish.
Parsley
Adds fresh, green herbal aroma and a light finishing note.

The step that matters

Frying the sweetbreads in butter. Sweetbreads must be dry and well scalded before frying; surface moisture prevents browning and causes spattering, so the outside won't crisp and color evenly.

Swap the marjoram

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

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Marjoramthe original
  3. Capersfits about as well
  4. Celeryfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, parsley, mushroom, ketchup. 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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