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Brain Balls

Brain balls are small fried balls made from calf brains, bread crumbs, egg yolk, butter, and curry powder.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Brain Balls

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mixture

  1. Remove the gills from the calf's brains and beat them until smooth.

  2. In a bowl, combine the brains, bread crumbs, hard-boiled egg yolk, and butter.

  3. Season the mixture with curry powder to taste.

Form and fry

  1. Form the mixture into small balls.

  2. Fry the balls in hot oil 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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  3. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Calf brains
Provide the soft, rich base that the rest of the mixture binds to.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and give the mixture body so the balls hold their shape.
Hard-boiled egg yolk
Adds richness and helps bind the mixture into a cohesive dough.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and moisture, and helps the surface brown when fried.

The step that matters

Fry the balls in hot oil until golden brown. If the oil is not hot enough, the balls absorb oil and turn greasy before the outside browns. Hot oil sears the surface quickly, forming a crust that holds the soft interior together.

“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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