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Calf's Brains with Fried Parsley

Calf brains cooked in water, seasoned with vinegar and butter, served with a sauce of browned butter, vinegar, salt, pepper, and fried parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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 ↓

Calf's Brains with Fried Parsley

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the brains

  1. Blanch the brains in boiling water for a few minutes.

  2. Remove the skin from the brains.

Cook and serve

  1. Boil the brains in water with salt, vinegar, and butter until cooked.

  2. For the sauce, mix browned butter, vinegar, salt, and pepper.

  3. Serve the brains topped with the sauce and fried parsley.

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. Vinegar + peppertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

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

  3. Butter + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28,563 recipes

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

  4. Vinegar + parsleytop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,477 recipes

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

  5. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

What each ingredient does

Calf's brains
Form the main body of the dish, becoming tender and delicate when gently cooked.
Browned butter
Adds a nutty, toasted aroma and rich flavour to the sauce.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the rich brains and sauce.

The step that matters

Boil the brains until cooked. Brains are delicate and turn firm and rubbery if overcooked, so gentle simmering in salted, acidulated water and checking for doneness early keeps them tender.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Tarragonfits about as well
  2. Parsleythe original
  3. Thymefits less well
  4. Dillfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, butter, pepper. 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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