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Salad

Sweetbread Salad

A salad of sweetbreads dressed with a mustard‑oil vinaigrette and garnished with crisped lettuce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Mustard and lettuce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,356 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Sweetbread Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dressing

  1. Mash the hard-boiled and raw egg yolks together smoothly.

  2. Sprinkle in the dry mustard and gradually beat in the oil and vinegar.

  3. Season with salt and cayenne pepper to taste, and beat hard for a few minutes.

  4. If the dressing is too stiff, add the juice of one lemon.

Assemble and serve

  1. Layer the dressing with the sweetbreads in a serving dish.

  2. Garnish with small heads of crisped lettuce.

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. Mustard + lettucetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,356 recipes

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

  2. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  3. Mustard + vinegartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Mustard + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

  5. Pepper + lettucetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,037 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Emulsify the oil and vinegar into a thick, creamy dressing that holds together.
Oil
Provides fat and richness, giving the dressing its smooth body and mouthfeel.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the dressing and balances the richness of the oil and yolks.
Dry mustard
Contributes sharp flavour and helps stabilise the emulsion.
Sweetbreads
Serve as the main protein, adding tender texture and savoury body to the salad.

The step that matters

Beating the oil into the yolks. Oil must be added gradually while beating, so the yolks can emulsify it. Adding it too fast causes the dressing to split and turn greasy instead of thick and creamy.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, mustard, vinegar, pepper, lettuce):

  1. Limefits better
  2. Avocadofits better
  3. Lemonthe original
  4. Cherryfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, mustard, vinegar, pepper, lettuce. 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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