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 Fritters
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the brain
Clean the brain, removing the red membrane and clots of blood.
Soak the brain in cold salted water for 1 hour.
In a pot, combine the brain with 1 pint of cold water, lemon juice, and salt.
Bring to a boil, then gently boil for 10 minutes.
Plunge the brain into cold water until needed.
Dry gently on a soft cloth and cut into serving sections.
Fry and serve
Roll each piece in fritter batter.
Drop into hot fat and fry until golden brown.
Drain on clean brown paper in a warm oven before serving.
Wash and dry parsley stalks, then plunge into hot fat for 1 minute until crisp.
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.
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Lemon + parsleytop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together14,037 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
- Brain
- Forms the main body of the fritter, its soft interior setting firm when poached and fried.
- Fritter batter
- Forms a crisp golden coating that browns in the hot fat and holds the pieces together.
- Lemon juice
- Adds a little acidity that brightens the mild flavour of the brain.
The step that matters
Dry the brain before frying. Any surface water turns to steam in the hot fat and can spatter or stop the batter from crisping. Drying gently on a soft cloth keeps the coating adhering and golden.
“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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