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Brain Cutlets

A dish of fried brain slices coated in egg and toast crumbs, served with tomato sauce, lemon, and parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 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 Cutlets

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Clean the brains thoroughly and soak them in salt water for 30 minutes.

  2. Slice the brains into 4 pieces.

Coat and fry

  1. Roll each slice in beaten egg, then coat with crushed Post Toasties.

  2. Fry in hot fat until golden brown.

Serve

  1. Serve with tomato sauce and garnish with sliced lemon and parsley.

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. Tomato + parsleytop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,398 recipes

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

  3. Tomato + lemontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,592 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  4. Tomato + saucetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,469 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Egg + lemontop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

Egg and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 44,316 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

Egg
Beaten egg helps the crushed cereal coating stick to the brain slices.
Tomato sauce
Adds moisture and acidity to balance the rich, fried brains.
Brains
The main ingredient, sliced and fried to form the cutlet.

The step that matters

Frying until golden brown. Hot fat sets and browns the coating quickly, creating a crisp crust. If the fat is not hot enough, the coating absorbs oil and turns greasy while the inside cooks slowly.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sauce, egg, lemon, parsley):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Spinachfits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sauce, egg, lemon, parsley. 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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