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Brain Croquettes

Brain croquettes are fried patties made from mashed brains, eggs, cracker crumbs, butter, lemon juice, parsley, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Brain Croquettes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the brains

  1. Wash the brains in cold water.

  2. Soak the brains in warm water.

  3. Skin and rinse the brains.

  4. Cook the brains in scalding water until tender.

  5. Drain the water.

  6. Mash the brains with a potato masher.

Make the mixture

  1. Add beaten eggs, cracker crumbs, butter, parsley, salt, and pepper to the mashed brains.

  2. Cook the mixture until thick.

  3. Set aside to cool.

Form and fry

  1. Form the mixture into croquettes.

  2. Roll the croquettes in egg and bread crumbs.

  3. Fry the croquettes until golden.

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. Lemon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

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

  2. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  3. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

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

What each ingredient does

Brains
Form the bulk of the croquettes, providing the soft, rich body that the mixture is built around.
Eggs
Bind the mashed mixture and set when cooked, helping the croquettes hold their shape.
Cracker crumbs
Absorb moisture and add body, giving the mixture enough firmness to be shaped.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smoother, more tender texture.

The step that matters

Cook the mixture until thick. The mixture must be thick enough to hold its shape when cooled and formed. Under-cooking leaves it too wet to shape and fry cleanly, while the egg proteins set as they heat, firming the mixture.

“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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