Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓
Sweetbread Cutlets
Ingredients
Directions
Boil the sweetbreads in water or veal broth for 30 minutes until cold.
Cut the sweetbreads into equal slices.
Brush the slices with egg yolks and dip them in seasoned bread-crumbs.
Fry the cutlets in butter until light brown.
Arrange the cutlets on a dish, placing them high in the center.
Pour gravy made from the pan, thickened with mushroom powder and flavored with lemon juice, under the cutlets.
Alternatively, serve with rich brown gravy mixed with sherry or Madeira.
If desired, serve each cutlet on a slice of cold boiled tongue or on fried bread croutons.
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.
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Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together27,047 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
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Mushroom + sherrytop 5% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,176 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-methylphenol (smoky, clove).
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Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together27,232 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Butter + mushroomtop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together12,525 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).
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Bread + mushroomtop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,536 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
Swap the mace
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, bread, pepper, lemon, butter, mushroom, sherry):
- Thymefits better
- Parsleyfits better
- Marjoramfits better
- Macethe original
Fit is the average pairing score against egg, bread, pepper, lemon, butter, mushroom, sherry. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
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