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Sweetbreads, Fried

Fried sweetbreads served with peas and sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Peas and tomato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,058 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Sweetbreads, Fried

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak the sweetbreads in salt water for 1 hour to remove dark blood.

  2. Parboil the sweetbreads for 10 minutes, then drain and place in cold water.

  3. Remove all loose skin and gristle without breaking the sweetbreads.

Coat and fry

  1. Dry the sweetbreads, then coat them in flour.

  2. Dip the floured sweetbreads in beaten egg, then roll in bread crumbs or cracker dust.

  3. If large, split them before crumbing.

  4. Fry the sweetbreads in hot oil until they are a rich light brown.

Serve

  1. Serve the sweetbreads around a mound of green peas with bechamel or tomato sauce in a boat.

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. Peas + tomatotop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,058 recipes

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

  2. Bread + tomatotop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,013 recipes

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

  3. Bread + peastop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together804 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexyl acetate (fruity, apple).

  4. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  5. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Sweetbreads
Main protein; its delicate, tender texture is the centre of the dish.
Flour
Dry coating that helps the egg and crumbs adhere to the sweetbreads.
Egg
Binds the flour to the bread crumbs so the crumb coating holds during frying.
Bread crumbs or cracker dust
Forms a crisp outer crust that browns in the hot oil.

The step that matters

Fry in hot oil until rich light brown. Oil that is not hot enough lets the crumb coating soak up fat and turn greasy before it browns. Hot oil sets and browns the crust quickly, keeping the inside tender.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, egg, bread, peas):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Asparagusfits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, egg, bread, peas. 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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