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Sweetbreads, Fried

Fried sweetbreads coated in breadcrumbs and clarified butter, served on toast.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Egg and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 118,967 recipes. Both carry decanal, which smells soap, orange peel. The science ↓

Sweetbreads, Fried

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak the sweetbreads for 1 hour.

  2. Plunge them into boiling water for 5 minutes.

  3. Transfer them to cold water until cool.

Coat and fry

  1. Cut the sweetbreads into slices.

  2. Dip the slices in beaten eggs, then coat with breadcrumbs.

  3. Dip again in clarified butter, then coat with breadcrumbs once more.

  4. Fry in plenty of hot fat until brightly browned.

Serve

  1. Drain and serve on toast.

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. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Sweetbreads
Main protein; the soak and brief boil firm and whiten them before slicing and frying.
Eggs
Beaten eggs act as a binding layer that helps breadcrumbs stick to the slices.
Breadcrumbs
Form a crisp, golden coating when fried, adding texture and browning.
Clarified butter
Adds richness and flavor to the second coating and helps it brown.

The step that matters

Frying in plenty of hot fat. Enough hot fat keeps the oil temperature high when the coated slices go in, so the crumb crisps and browns quickly instead of absorbing grease and turning soggy.

“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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