Name: Calfs Brains Breaded and Fried
Ingredients: veal calf's brains; onion juice; coarse sea salt; black pepper; nutmeg; bread crumbs; cream sauce; egg

Why it works: Pepper and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 13,015 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Calfs Brains Breaded and Fried

Ingredients

Directions

Mince the veal calf's brains finely.
Add onion juice, coarse sea salt, black pepper, nutmeg, and bread crumbs.
Moisten the mixture with cream sauce and shape into rolls about 2 inches long.
Dip the rolls in beaten egg and then coat with bread crumbs.
Fry until golden brown and serve with your choice of 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.

Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together13,015 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Cream + saucetop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,787 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together68,474 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Nutmeg + creamtop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together7,920 recipes

Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).
Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together22,662 recipes

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

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

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, pepper, nutmeg, bread, cream, sauce, egg):

Spinachfits better
Capsicumfits better
Shallotfits better
Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, pepper, nutmeg, bread, cream, sauce, egg. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.