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Fried Brains with Tomato Sauce

A dish of fried brains served with a tomato sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Thyme and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Fried Brains with Tomato Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the brains

  1. Soak the brains in saltwater for at least one hour.

  2. Remove the brains from the water, carefully remove the membrane, and blanch in cold water with reserved vegetable slices, bay leaf, cloves, parsley, thyme, salt, and vinegar for 15 minutes.

Make the tomato sauce

  1. Peel and slice the tomatoes, carrot, turnip, and onion; reserve two slices of each.

  2. Combine the sliced vegetables with 1 pint of boiling water or broth, thyme, parsley, cloves, and bay leaf; boil gently until tender, then strain.

  3. Melt the butter in another pan, add flour, stir until bubbling, then gradually mix in ½ pint of boiling water; combine with the strained tomato sauce and keep hot.

Fry and serve

  1. Dry the brains, then coat in bread crumbs, dip in beaten egg, and fry in hot lard until brown.

  2. Drain on brown paper, serve on a hot dish with tomato sauce underneath, and garnish with 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. Thyme + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Parsley + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

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

  3. Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Parsley + turniptop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,842 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Thyme + carrottop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Binds the bread crumb coating so it adheres during frying.
Butter
Enriches the sauce and, with flour, forms a roux that thickens it.
Flour
Thickens the butter base of the sauce as a roux.
Tomatoes
Provide the main body, acidity and flavour of the sauce.
Lard
Conducts heat for frying, browning the coating and sealing the surface.
Vinegar
Acidity in the blanching liquid helps firm and whiten the brains.

The step that matters

Frying the brains until brown. Brains are delicate and can break apart or absorb fat if the lard is not hot enough or the coating is damp. Thoroughly dried brains and hot lard form a crisp, sealed crust.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, vinegar, thyme, parsley, carrot, turnip, onion):

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Parsnipfits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, vinegar, thyme, parsley, carrot, turnip, onion. 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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