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Brains with Tomatoe Sauce

Brains with Tomato Sauce is a dish of pig or veal brains simmered in a tomato and onion sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 with Tomatoe Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Clean the brains.

Fry the brains

  1. Fry the brains in butter.

  2. Set the fried brains aside.

Make the sauce

  1. Add onion, parsley, corn starch, tomatoes, salt, and cayenne pepper to the butter.

  2. Cook the mixture for 15 minutes.

  3. Add the fried brains.

  4. Cook for about 10 minutes longer.

Serve

  1. Serve the dish on buttered toast.

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. Corn + tomatotop 6% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together2,099 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  3. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together17,923 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Onion + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together20,633 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Tomato + parsleytop 8% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together5,398 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Brains
Form the main body of the dish, with a soft, delicate texture once fried and simmered.
Tomatoes
Provide the liquid and acidity that form the base of the sauce.
Butter
Fries the brains and carries the flavor of the sauce.
Corn starch
Thickens the tomato sauce so it clings to the brains.

The step that matters

Frying the brains in butter. Brains are delicate and can break apart or toughen if handled roughly or overcooked. Frying over moderate heat gives a browned surface while keeping the inside tender enough to hold together in the sauce.

Flavor stand-ins for the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (corn, veal, tomato, parsley, butter, pepper):

  1. Capsicumbetter flavor fit
  2. Carrotbetter flavor fit
  3. Potatobetter flavor fit
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against corn, veal, tomato, parsley, butter, pepper. 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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