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Sheep’s Brains— Black Butter

Sheep's brains cooked in black butter with parsley, vinegar, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Sheep’s Brains— Black Butter

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Cook the brains as directed, then drain them on a dish.

  2. In a frying pan, heat the salt butter until nearly black.

  3. Add the parsley, vinegar, salt, and pepper to the pan.

  4. Pour the mixture over the brains and serve very hot.

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. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Vinegar + peppertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Butter + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  4. Parsley + vinegartop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,477 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  5. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Salt butter
Fat that is browned in the pan to form the nutty, bitter-tasting base of the sauce.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the rich, fatty butter and balances its flavour.
Sheep's brains
Main protein; its soft, delicate texture is the centrepiece of the dish.
Parsley
Contributes fresh, green aroma that cuts through the richness of the butter.

The step that matters

Heating the butter until nearly black. Butter solids brown and then burn quickly, so the butter must be watched closely. Stopping at the right colour gives a nutty flavour rather than an acrid, burnt taste.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Tarragonfits about as well
  2. Parsleythe original
  3. Thymefits less well
  4. Dillfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, vinegar, pepper. 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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