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Breakfast Coffee

A fried brain cake made with bread crumbs, butter, spices, and eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Breakfast Coffee

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the brains

  1. Soak the brains in a strong saltwater mixture for 1 hour.

  2. Boil the brains in cold water for 20 minutes, then chop into rough pieces.

Shape the cakes

  1. In a bowl, mix the chopped brains with butter, 2 tablespoons of bread crumbs, salt, pepper, and mace.

  2. Add chopped parsley and the egg yolks, then mix well.

  3. Form the mixture into small, flat, round cakes, dusting your hands with flour to prevent sticking.

Coat, fry and serve

  1. Whip the egg whites and dip the cakes into them, then roll in the remaining bread crumbs.

  2. Fry the cakes in hot clarified fat or lard for 2 minutes until golden.

  3. Drain on kitchen paper and serve in a folded napkin 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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

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

  4. Mace + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,268 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  5. Butter + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

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

What each ingredient does

Brains
Forms the soft body of the cakes, setting firm when cooked.
Egg yolks
Bind the mixture and enrich it so the cakes hold together.
Egg whites
Whipped whites form a light coating that crisps and browns in the hot fat.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture in the mix and give the cakes a crisp, golden coating.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture to the brain mixture.

The step that matters

Frying in hot clarified fat. The fat must be properly hot so the coating sets almost on contact, sealing the cakes and limiting grease absorption. Fat that is too cool lets the cakes soak up oil and turn soggy before they brown.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, bread, butter, parsley, 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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