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Heart Sweetbreads

Heart sweetbreads braised with bacon, green onions, stock, and buttered paper, served over stewed peas.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and peas are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,460 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Heart Sweetbreads

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Place green onions in the center of a dish and cover with bacon.

  2. Moisten with stock and cover with buttered paper.

Braise

  1. Boil sweetbreads on the stove, then transfer to a 350°F (175°C) oven or a moderate fire.

  2. Braise for about 20 minutes, basting frequently with the liquid.

Glaze and serve

  1. Remove the lid and paper, then return to the oven to dry and glaze the surface.

  2. Serve on a bed of stewed peas.

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. Onion + peastop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,460 recipes

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

  2. Onion + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Butter + peastop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,887 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

What each ingredient does

Green onions
Lie under the sweetbreads and perfume the dish as they cook.
Bacon
Thin layers of fat baste the meat and add savory flavor as they render.
Stock
Provides moisture for braising and forms the liquid used for basting.

The step that matters

Basting during the braise. Basting returns the cooking liquid over the sweetbreads, keeping the surface moist and the meat tender while the braise is covered and gently cooking.

Swap the peas

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

  1. Sesamefits better
  2. Peanutfits better
  3. Almondfits better
  4. Peasthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, butter. 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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