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Sauce

Brain Sauce

A sauce made from mashed brains mixed with onion, chillies, vinegar, and oil.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and vinegar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 18,226 recipes. Both carry acetic acid, which smells sour, vinegar. The science ↓

Brain Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the brains

  1. Wash the brains and steep them in cold water for 30 minutes.

  2. Boil the brains gently in salted water, removing the scum as it rises.

  3. Once cooked, mash the brains and set aside.

Make the sauce

  1. In a bowl, combine the minced onion, minced chillies, vinegar, and salad oil.

  2. Mix the mashed brains with the sauce.

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. Onion + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,226 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

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

What each ingredient does

Brains
Provide the main body and rich texture of the sauce once mashed.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour and balances the richness.
Salad oil
Adds fat that carries flavour and gives the sauce a smoother mouthfeel.
Onion
Contributes savoury bulk and aromatic flavour to the sauce.
Green chillies
Add heat and fresh, sharp aroma to the sauce.

The step that matters

Boil the brains gently and skim the scum. Vigorous boiling can toughen the delicate brain tissue and break it apart, while skimming removes impurities that would make the sauce taste muddy. Gentle heat keeps the texture soft and even.

“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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