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Sweetbreads

A baked sweetbread dish simmered with bacon, butter, vegetables, herbs, and stock.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and carrot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,053 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

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. Soak sweetbreads in cold salted water to cleanse and remove blood.

  2. Blanch sweetbreads in cold water with vinegar or lemon juice, peppercorns, parsley, and onion. Bring the mixture to a boil.

  3. Lift out the sweetbreads and press them between two plates until cold.

  4. Wrap the sweetbreads in bacon and then wrap the bacon-wrapped sweetbreads in buttered paper.

Braise

  1. Place the wrapped sweetbreads in a stew-pan with butter, carrot, onion, celery, and herbs. Fry lightly for 12–15 minutes.

  2. Pour in stock.

  3. Cook gently in the oven at 350°F (175°C) for 1 hour, adding more stock as needed.

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. Parsley + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  2. Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  3. Parsley + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

  5. Onion + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Sweetbreads
Main protein; becomes tender and delicate when gently cooked in liquid and fat.
Butter
Adds richness and helps lightly brown the vegetables and sweetbreads during the initial frying.
Stock
Provides moisture for gentle braising so the sweetbreads do not dry out in the oven.
Bacon
Adds fat and savory flavor, basting the sweetbreads as they cook.

The step that matters

Pressing the sweetbreads until cold. Pressing firms the cooled sweetbreads so they hold their shape and wrap neatly. Letting them cool fully before wrapping also keeps the bacon and paper from becoming greasy and loose.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (vinegar, parsley, butter, carrot, celery):

  1. Parsnipfits better
  2. Turnipfits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, parsley, butter, carrot, celery. 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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