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Brains, Sheep's, Fricasseed

A fried dish of sheep brains, coated in flour and crumbs, served on fried bread with ham, parsley, and bacon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and 34,122 recipes mention both. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Brains, Sheep's, Fricasseed

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the brains

  1. Boil the sheep's brains in slightly salted water for 10 minutes.

  2. Once the brains are cold, slice each piece.

  3. Sprinkle the sliced brains with chopped ham and parsley.

  4. Dredge the brains with flour.

  5. Season the brains with pepper and coarse sea salt.

Coat and fry

  1. Dip the seasoned brains in beaten egg.

  2. Cover the brains with fine crumbs.

  3. Fry the crumbed brains in boiling fat for 8 minutes.

Serve

  1. Serve the brains on thin slices of fried bread.

  2. Garnish with fried bacon.

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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Ham + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together2,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  3. Parsley + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together16,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  5. Parsley + breadtop 15% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together8,588 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

Sheep's brains
Form the main body of the dish, becoming tender when boiled and then firm when fried.
Flour
Dry coating that helps the egg adhere and gives the crumbs a surface to grip.
Beaten egg
Binds the crumbs to the brains and helps the crust set and brown when fried.
Fine crumbs
Forms a crisp, golden outer crust during frying.
Chopped ham
Adds savoury, salty flavour to the brains.

The step that matters

Fry the crumbed brains in boiling fat for 8 minutes. The fat must be hot enough to set the egg and crumb crust quickly; if it is too cool, the coating absorbs grease and turns soggy while the inside warms slowly.

Flavor stand-ins for the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (ham, flour, pepper, egg, bread):

  1. Parsleythe original
  2. Nutmegabout as good a flavor fit
  3. Marjoramabout as good a flavor fit
  4. Capersabout as good a flavor fit

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, flour, pepper, egg, bread. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“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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