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Beignets De Cervelles De Veau

Fritters made from veal brains, seasoned with salt, pepper, lemon, and fried in lard.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Beignets De Cervelles De Veau

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the brains

  1. Remove veins from the brains without breaking them.

  2. Season the brains with salt, pepper, and lemon juice.

  3. Cut the brains into small pieces, about 1 inch square.

  4. Dip the pieces in thick fritter batter.

Fry and serve

  1. Heat lard in a deep pan until boiling.

  2. Fry the brains until golden brown, turning them to brown evenly.

  3. Remove the brains and drain them on paper in a warm oven.

  4. Serve the fritters on a folded napkin or cut paper, garnished with fried parsley.

  5. Accompany with mayonnaise, tomato, or tartar 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. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

What each ingredient does

Calf brains
Form the main body of the fritters, cooking to a soft interior under a crisp coating.
Fritter batter
Coats the brain pieces and fries to a golden, crisp crust.
Lard
Frying fat that conducts heat and browns the batter evenly.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the mild, rich flavour of the brains.

The step that matters

Frying the brains until golden brown. Lard must be hot enough before the batter goes in, or the coating absorbs fat and turns greasy. Turning the pieces lets heat reach every side so the crust browns evenly.

“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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