Name: Creamed Sweetbreads
Ingredients: sweetbreads; white sauce; mushrooms; lemon juice or vinegar

Why it works: Mushroom and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,633 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Creamed Sweetbreads

Ingredients

sweetbreads
white sauce
mushrooms
lemon juice or vinegar

Directions

Soak sweetbreads in cold water immediately after purchasing to prevent spoilage.
Break sweetbreads into small pieces.
Add white sauce and finely chopped mushrooms.
Cook for 10 minutes and serve.
Optionally, add lemon juice or vinegar to harden sweetbreads during cooking.

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.

Mushroom + lemontop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,633 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Sauce + mushroomtop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together4,480 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Sauce + lemontop 30% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together6,598 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).