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Croquettes of Calfs Brains

A fried dish of mashed calf brains mixed with egg, breadcrumbs, and spices, served in goose fat.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Egg and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 22,662 recipes. Both carry (e)-2-octenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Croquettes of Calfs Brains

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the brains

  1. Soak the brains in salt water for 1 hour until they are white.

  2. Remove the outer skin from each brain.

  3. Mash the brains into a smooth paste with a wooden spoon.

  4. Season the paste with salt, pepper, and a pinch of mace.

Shape and fry

  1. Add the beaten egg and bread crumbs, mixing well.

  2. Heat goose fat in a skillet over medium heat.

  3. Fry large spoonfuls of the mixture in the hot fat until golden brown.

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. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

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

  2. Pepper + macetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,257 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  3. Pepper + breadtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,964 recipes

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

  4. Mace + breadtop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,005 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  5. Pepper + eggtop 33% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together50,580 recipes

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

Pepper and mace barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 12,257 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
Form the soft, creamy body of the croquettes once mashed into a paste.
Beaten egg
Binds the mixture so the croquettes hold together when fried.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and add body so the mixture can be shaped and fried.
Goose fat
Conducts heat for frying and browns the outside of the croquettes.

The step that matters

Fry large spoonfuls in hot fat until golden brown. The fat must be hot enough to brown the outside quickly. If it is too cool, the croquettes absorb grease and may fall apart or turn soggy before a crisp crust forms.

Swap the mace

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, egg, bread. 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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