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Brain Cakes

Brain Cakes are fried cakes made from boiled brains, breadcrumbs, egg, pepper, salt, parsley, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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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

  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, coarse sea salt, and a pinch of chopped parsley.

Shape and fry

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

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

  3. Fry in a little butter until golden brown on both sides.

Serve

  1. 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, soft filling.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and add body, so the mixture holds together and the coating crisps.
Egg
Binds the mixture together and helps the coating set and brown when fried.
Butter
Fat for frying that browns the outside of the cakes and adds flavour.

The step that matters

Shaping the cakes. If the mixture is too wet or loosely bound, the cakes will fall apart in the pan. Enough egg and bread crumbs give structure, and flouring your hands keeps the mixture from sticking while you shape it.

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.

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