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Brain Cakes

Brain cakes are fried patties made from ground beef brains mixed with breadcrumbs, herbs, and egg yolks.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Marjoram and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,979 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Brain Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the brains

  1. Remove the gills from the brains, boil them, and chop them finely.

Make the mixture

  1. Mix bread crumbs, shredded lemon peel, pepper, salt, nutmeg, marjoram, parsley, and egg yolks.

  2. Combine the chopped brains with the mixture.

  3. If the mixture is too runny, add more bread crumbs.

Fry

  1. Heat butter in a pan and drop spoonfuls of the mixture to fry 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. Marjoram + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,979 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Lemon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Lemon + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together957 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Nutmeg + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together687 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 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
Provide the main body and rich, savoury flavour of the cakes.
Egg yolks
Bind the mixture together and help it set when cooked.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and give the cakes body so they hold their shape.
Butter
Conducts heat in the pan and promotes browning on the cakes' surface.

The step that matters

Adjusting the mixture's consistency. If the mixture is too runny, the cakes will spread and fall apart in the pan. Adding bread crumbs absorbs excess moisture so each spoonful holds its shape while frying.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Sagefits better
  4. Nutmegthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, lemon, pepper, marjoram, parsley, egg, beef. 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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