Name: Croquettes of Sweetbread
Ingredients: cold sweetbreads; white sauce or veloute; puff pastry; 1 beaten egg; grated bread; oil for frying; fried parsley for serving

Why it works: Egg and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 22,662 recipes. Both carry (e)-2-octenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Croquettes of Sweetbread

Ingredients

Directions

Mince the cold sweetbreads and boil them in a white sauce or veloute until fully combined.
Once cold, form the mixture into balls or rolls about 2 inches long.
Fry the croquettes until golden brown and serve with fried parsley in the center.
Alternatively, roll out a piece of thin puff pastry, enclose the sweetbread mixture, and brush with a beaten egg.
Sprinkle grated bread over the pastry and fry until light brown.

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.

Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together22,662 recipes

Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).
Bread + parsleytop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together8,588 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Egg + parsleytop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together18,765 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Sauce + breadtop 22% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together4,934 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Sauce + parsleytop 23% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together6,693 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).