Name: Fried Sweetbreads
Ingredients: sweetbreads; water; eggs; bread crumbs; cooking fat; tomato sauce or brown sauce

Why it works: Bread and tomato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,013 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Fried Sweetbreads

Ingredients

Directions

Soak sweetbreads in water for several hours.
Boil sweetbreads for 5 to 10 minutes, depending on size.
Place boiled sweetbreads in cold water to cool.
Once cool, carefully dry the sweetbreads.
Dip sweetbreads in beaten eggs, then coat with bread crumbs.
Heat cooking fat in a frying pan until boiling.
Fry sweetbreads until golden brown, turning occasionally if fat does not cover them.
Serve with tomato sauce or brown sauce on the side.

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.

Bread + tomatotop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,013 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together22,662 recipes

Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).
Egg + tomatotop 34% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together5,890 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).