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Boiled Brains

A dish of boiled calf or bullock brains seasoned with pepper, salt, marjoram or sage, served with toasted bread.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and marjoram match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,609 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Boiled Brains

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak the brains in lukewarm water for 2 hours to draw out the blood.

  2. Tie the brains in muslin and place them in boiling water.

Cook and season

  1. Boil for 20 minutes, then drain in a colander.

  2. Transfer to a basin and beat thoroughly with a fork.

  3. Season with plenty of pepper, salt, and a little marjoram or sage.

Serve

  1. Serve on a hot dish, pour melted butter sauce over, and garnish with toasted bread slices.

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 + marjoramtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,609 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Marjoram + breadtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,008 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl decanoate (grape, waxy).

  3. Pepper + breadtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,964 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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; beating them breaks up the cooked texture into a soft mass.
Butter (in the method)
Adds richness and moisture through the melted sauce poured over the dish.

The step that matters

Soaking the brains. Soaking in lukewarm water draws out residual blood, which otherwise leaves the brains discoloured and gives a stronger, less clean flavour once cooked.

Swap the marjoram

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

  1. Parsleyfits about as well
  2. Marjoramthe original
  3. Sagefits about as well
  4. Thymefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against 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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