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Brain Cutlets

A fried cutlet made from cooked brains, ham, mushrooms, and egg yolks, served with parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Mushroom and parsley are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,132 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Brain Cutlets

Ingredients

Directions

Make the mixture

  1. Combine chopped brains, ham, and mushrooms in a pan.

  2. Season to taste and moisten with white sauce.

  3. Stir over heat and bind with egg yolks.

  4. Spread the mixture on a plate and let it cool.

Shape and fry

  1. Shape the cooled mixture into cutlets.

  2. Coat each cutlet with egg and breadcrumbs.

  3. Insert a piece of macaroni into the end of each cutlet.

  4. Fry the cutlets in hot fat until golden brown.

Serve

  1. Serve garnished 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. Mushroom + parsleytop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,132 recipes

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

  2. Ham + mushroomtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,486 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  3. Ham + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,526 recipes

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

  4. Mushroom + saucetop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,480 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Cooked brains
Forms the main body of the cutlet and gives it a soft, rich texture.
White sauce
Moistens the mixture so it holds together without drying out.
Egg yolks
Bind the mixture as they set with heat, holding the cutlet shape.
Ham
Adds savoury flavour and firmness to the filling.
Mushrooms
Add moisture and earthy flavour to the filling.

The step that matters

Let the mixture cool before shaping. A warm mixture is soft and sticky, so cutlets made from it can slump or split. Cooling firms the binding so the shapes hold through coating and frying.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Parsleythe original
  3. Tarragonfits about as well
  4. Nutmegfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, mushroom, sauce, egg. 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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