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Brain Cakes

Brain Cakes are small fried cakes made from calf or lamb brains mixed with eggs, flour, breadcrumbs, lemon peel, parsley, spices, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Brain Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the brains

  1. Remove all fibers and skins from the brains. Scald the brains.

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, beat the brains with the yolks of 2 eggs. Add flour, bread crumbs, grated lemon peel, parsley, pepper, salt, nutmeg, and enough melted butter to make a batter.

Fry and serve

  1. Drop small cakes into boiling lard and fry until light brown.

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. Lemon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

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

  3. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

  4. Parsley + nutmegtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,062 recipes

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

  5. Lemon + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

What each ingredient does

Brains
Form the main body of the cakes and give them a soft, rich texture.
Eggs
Yolks bind the brain mixture so the cakes hold together.
Flour
Adds body to the batter so the cakes keep their shape during frying.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and help the batter firm up around the cakes.
Melted butter
Adds fat and richness and loosens the mixture into a workable batter.

The step that matters

Frying the cakes in boiling lard. Lard must be hot enough to brown the outside quickly. If it is too cool, the cakes absorb grease and turn heavy and oily before a crust forms.

“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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