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Lamb's Brains Rolls

Stuffed lamb brains rolled with mushroom, olive, breadcrumb mixture, fried and served with port wine brown sauce and croûtons.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 18 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Lamb's Brains Rolls

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the brains

  1. Blanch the lamb's brains in salted water until boiling, then drain and replace the water with fresh water.

  2. Stew the brains slowly in white stock for 15 minutes.

  3. Drain the brains and allow them to cool, then slice them.

Make the stuffing

  1. Finely mince the mushrooms and olives.

  2. Mix the minced mushrooms and olives with breadcrumbs, lemon peel, and herbs, then bind the mixture with beaten egg.

Assemble and fry

  1. Cover the sliced brains with the stuffing and drizzle with lemon juice.

  2. Roll the stuffed brains and secure with skewers.

  3. Coat the rolls in beaten egg and breadcrumbs.

  4. Fry the rolls in boiling clarified fat until golden brown.

  5. Drain the fried rolls and place them on a hot dish.

Serve

  1. Pour the brown sauce mixed with port wine over the rolls.

  2. Garnish with browned bread croûtons.

  3. Serve with cut lemons.

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. Parsley + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 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 + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,973 recipes

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

  4. Parsley + cherviltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together774 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Thyme + cherviltop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together201 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Lamb's brains
Provide the tender, delicate core that is the main body of each roll.
Button mushrooms
Add moisture and savoury earthy flavour to the stuffing.
Breadcrumbs
Absorb liquid and help bind the stuffing so it holds together.
Beaten egg
Binds the stuffing and forms a crisp golden coating for frying.
Port wine
Adds sweetness and depth to the brown sauce served over the rolls.

The step that matters

Frying the coated rolls. Fat must be hot enough to brown the egg and breadcrumb coating quickly. If it is too cool, the coating absorbs oil and turns greasy before it crisps, while the filling is left soft.

Swap the chervil

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lamb, mushroom, olive, lemon, parsley, thyme, egg):

  1. Marjoramfits better
  2. Rosemaryfits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Chervilthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lamb, mushroom, olive, lemon, parsley, thyme, egg. 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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