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Brain Croquettes

Brain croquettes are fried cakes made from parboiled brains, cracker crumbs, eggs, and seasoned with salt and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley 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 ↓

Brain Croquettes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the brains

  1. Parboil the brains for 20 minutes and drain them.

Shape and coat

  1. Stir the cracker crumbs and beaten eggs into the drained brains.

  2. Form the mixture into cakes.

  3. Roll the cakes in eggs and then in cracker crumbs.

Fry and serve

  1. Fry the cakes in boiling lard until golden brown.

  2. Garnish with parsley before serving.

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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Egg + parsleytop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,765 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. Pepper + eggtop 33% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together50,580 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Pepper and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 50,580 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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 croquettes, giving them a soft, savoury filling.
Cracker crumbs
Absorb moisture and bind the mixture, then form a crisp golden coating.
Eggs
Bind the mixture together and help the coating adhere before frying.
Lard
Conducts heat for frying, browning the outside and adding richness.

The step that matters

Frying the coated cakes in boiling lard. The lard must be hot enough to brown the coating quickly. If it is too cool, the cakes absorb grease and turn soggy instead of crisp 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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