Skip to main content
Main

Brain Cakes

Brain Cakes are fried patties made from boiled and minced brains mixed with breadcrumbs, egg, pepper, salt, parsley, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Brain Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mixture

  1. Boil the brains until cooked, then mince them.

  2. For each tablespoon of minced brains, add 2 teaspoons of bread crumbs, enough egg to bind, pepper, and coarse sea salt to taste, along with a pinch of chopped parsley.

  3. Flour your hands, take a small lump of the mixture, roll it into a ball, and flatten it into a cake.

Fry and serve

  1. Dip the cake in egg and seasoned bread crumbs.

  2. Fry in a little butter, first on one side, then on the other, until golden brown.

  3. Serve with gravy or toasted bacon.

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 + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  3. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

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

  4. Parsley + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  5. Bread + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,588 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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 cakes, giving them their rich, savory flavor.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and give the cakes body so they hold their shape.
Egg
Binds the mixture together and forms a coating that helps the crumbs stick.
Butter
Conducts heat for frying and browns the outside of the cakes.

The step that matters

Binding the mixture to the right consistency. Too little egg leaves the cakes crumbly, so they fall apart when rolled or fried. Too much makes them wet and hard to shape. The mixture should hold together firmly before frying.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Parsleythe original
  2. Nutmegfits about as well
  3. Sagefits less well
  4. Tarragonfits less well

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

You might also like

Brown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesWhite BreadWhite Bread80 recipesBread OmeletteBread Omelette60 recipesOatmeal BreadOatmeal Bread51 recipes