Name: Fricassee of Sweetbreads
Ingredients: sweetbreads; mushrooms; lemon; peas; butter; herbs

Why it works: Mushroom and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 12,525 recipes. Both carry trans-2-decenal, which smells waxy, orange. The science ↓

Fricassee of Sweetbreads

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the sweetbreads by soaking them in cold water for a few hours.
Blanch the sweetbreads in boiling water for a few minutes, then drain and cool.
Sauté the mushrooms in butter until tender.
Add the sweetbreads to the mushrooms and cook until heated through.
Stir in lemon juice and peas, cooking until peas are tender.
Season with herbs and serve hot.

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.

Mushroom + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together12,525 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).
Mushroom + peastop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together890 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).
Lemon + peastop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,005 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Mushroom + lemontop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,633 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Lemon + buttertop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together41,227 recipes

Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).