Skip to main content
Main

Broiled Sweet-breads

Broiled sweetbreads served with peas, cauliflower, asparagus, or tomato sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Cauliflower and asparagus match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 163 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-one, which smells mushroom, metallic. The science ↓

Broiled Sweet-breads

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Parboil the sweetbreads until done.

  2. Cut them into half-inch thick pieces.

  3. Spread a little butter on each piece.

Grill

  1. Place the sweetbreads on a grill.

  2. Cook over a clear fire, turning until richly browned.

Serve

  1. Serve with peas, cauliflower, or asparagus in the center of a heated dish, or with tomato sauce.

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. Cauliflower + asparagustop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together163 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  2. Peas + asparagustop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together808 recipes

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

  3. Peas + cauliflowertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together313 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  4. Asparagus + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together313 recipes

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

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

Sweetbreads
The main protein; parboiling firms it, and grilling browns its outside.
Butter
Adds fat that carries heat to the surface and helps it brown richly.

The step that matters

Turning on the grill until richly browned. Browning comes from surface heat driving Maillard reactions, which build flavor and color. Turning exposes every side evenly, so the pieces brown well without scorching on one face.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, peas, cauliflower, asparagus, sauce):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, peas, cauliflower, asparagus, sauce. 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.

You might also like

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesGreen PeasGreen Peas229 recipesAsparagus SoupAsparagus Soup179 recipesCream of Tomato SoupCream of Tomato Soup107 recipes