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Sheep's Brain Cutlets

Sheep's brain cutlets are fried patties made from boiled brains mixed with herbs, spices, egg, and breadcrumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Ginger and mint work together. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 647 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Sheep's Brain Cutlets

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the brains

  1. Clean and wash the brains.

  2. Boil the brains in cold water until cooked, then let them cool.

  3. Mash the cooled brains and set aside.

Make the mixture

  1. Mix in the chopped ginger, mint, chillies, and onions.

  2. Add pepper and salt to taste.

  3. Heat a pan with a little ghee. Warm the mixture in the pan until it dries, then let it cool completely.

Shape and fry

  1. Shape the mixture into cutlets.

  2. Dip each cutlet in beaten egg and then coat with bread crumbs.

  3. Fry the cutlets in ghee or butter until golden brown.

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. Ginger + minttop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together647 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Ginger + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,800 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Ginger + oniontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,595 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Mint + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,372 recipes

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

  5. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

What each ingredient does

Sheep's brains
Form the soft, mild body of the cutlets once boiled and mashed.
Egg
Binds the coated cutlets so the bread crumbs stick during frying.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden crust that browns during frying.
Onions
Add moisture and savoury flavour to the mixture.
Green ginger
Adds aroma and a sharp, fresh flavour to the mixture.

The step that matters

Drying the mixture in the pan. Warming the mixture until it dries reduces moisture so the cutlets hold their shape. If it stays wet, it can slump and fall apart when shaped and fried. Letting it cool completely before shaping keeps it firm.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (ginger, mint, pepper, ghee, egg, bread):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Tomatofits better
  3. Carrotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against ginger, mint, pepper, ghee, egg, bread. 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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