Name: Sweetbreads Full Dressed
Ingredients: Sweetbreads; 1 Egg yolk; Fine bread-crumbs; Coarse sea salt (formerly 'bay salt'); Clean dripping (or cooking oil); Crisp parsley (for garnish); Mushroom ketchup or melted butter (for sauce); Anchovy sauce (optional)

Why it works: Anchovy and sauce are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,057 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Sweetbreads Full Dressed

Ingredients

Directions

Parboil the sweetbreads and let them cool.
Cut them into pieces about ¾ inch thick.
Dip each piece in the egg yolk, then coat with fine bread-crumbs.
Heat clean dripping in a frying pan until boiling.
Fry the sweetbreads until they are a fine brown.
Garnish with crisp parsley and serve with mushroom ketchup or melted butter.

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.

Anchovy + saucetop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,057 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Bread + mushroomtop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,536 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Bread + anchovytop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,260 recipes

Shared aroma: hexanol (green, fruity).
Parsley + mushroomtop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together6,132 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Egg + anchovytop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,330 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, bread, mushroom, anchovy, sauce):

Capersfits better
Parsleythe original
Garlicfits about as well
Nutmegfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, bread, mushroom, anchovy, sauce. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.