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Creamed Brains

A dish of calf brains simmered, then served in a cream sauce with butter, flour, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Mace and clove are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,400 recipes. Both carry methyleugenol, which smells clove, spice. The science ↓

Creamed Brains

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the brains

  1. Soak calf's brains in cold water for 1 hour, changing the water twice and adding a little vinegar and salt to the last water.

  2. Tie the brains in cheesecloth and place them in boiling water with the bay leaf, blade mace, and cloves. Cook the brains for 20 minutes.

  3. Drain the brains and blanch them in cold water.

Make the cream sauce

  1. In a double boiler, heat 1 cup of cream.

  2. Blend 1 tablespoon of butter with 1 tablespoon of sifted flour. Stir in 2 tablespoons of cold cream or milk.

  3. Gradually pour the hot cream over the blended butter and flour.

  4. Return the mixture to the stove and cook for 15 minutes.

Combine and finish

  1. Add the brains, 1 teaspoon of salt, and 1 teaspoon of kitchen bouquet.

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. Mace + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  2. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Clove + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,671 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Vinegar + clovetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,386 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Calf's brains
Provide the tender, delicate main body of the dish.
Cream
Adds richness and moisture to the sauce, giving it a smooth body.
Butter
Adds fat and flavour, and combines with flour to form a roux.
Flour
Thickens the cream sauce as it cooks with the butter.

The step that matters

Gradually pour the hot cream over the blended butter and flour. Adding hot cream slowly while stirring keeps the flour suspended so the sauce thickens smoothly without lumps.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (vinegar, clove, cream, butter, flour):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cinnamonfits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, clove, cream, butter, flour. 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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