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Coifs Brains with Supreme Sauce

Brains from calves are simmered with bacon, wine, carrot, onion, cloves, and served between fried bread with supreme sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,451 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Coifs Brains with Supreme Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the brains

  1. Soak the brains in cold water to remove impurities.

  2. Remove skin and congealed blood from the brains.

  3. Blanch the brains in boiling water with vinegar and salt.

  4. Trim the brains neatly and place them in a stewpan with fat bacon.

Cook

  1. Add white wine, carrot, onion, cloves, salt, and pepper.

  2. Cook on low heat until done.

  3. Drain the brains on a napkin.

Serve

  1. Serve between pieces of fried bread and top with supreme sauce.

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. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. Carrot + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,873 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  3. Carrot + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Carrot + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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 dish, becoming tender and delicate when gently cooked.
White wine
Adds acidity and aroma that flavour the brains as they simmer.
Fat bacon
Supplies fat that keeps the brains moist and adds savoury flavour during cooking.
Fried bread
Provides a crisp, absorbent base that holds the brains and soaks up juices.

The step that matters

Cook on low heat until done. Brains are delicate protein and turn firm, dry and rubbery if cooked too hard or too long. Gentle, low heat keeps them tender and moist.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (vinegar, white wine, carrot, clove, pepper, bread):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Tomatofits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, white wine, carrot, clove, pepper, 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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