Skip to main content
Main

Brain Cutlets

Brain cutlets are small pieces of brain coated in egg and breadcrumbs, fried in lard or butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 Cutlets

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the brains

  1. Cover the brains with cold salt water for a short time.

  2. Remove the membrane and drain carefully.

  3. Place the brains on a board and divide them into small pieces, about the size of a large oyster.

Coat and cook

  1. Dip each piece in the beaten egg, then roll in toasted bread or cracker crumbs.

  2. Drop them in boiling lard or butter until brown, and serve hot.

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. Egg + breadtop 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

Brains
Form the main body of the cutlets, cooking to a tender interior inside a crisp coating.
Beaten egg
Binds the crumb coating to the brain pieces so it adheres during frying.
Toasted bread or cracker crumbs
Forms a crisp, browned outer crust when fried.
Lard or butter
Conducts heat for frying and browns the coating, adding richness and flavor.

The step that matters

Drop them in boiling lard or butter until brown. The fat must be hot enough to brown the crumb coating quickly; if it is too cool, the coating absorbs fat and turns greasy before it crisps.

“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.

You might also like

Brown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesWhite BreadWhite Bread80 recipesBread OmeletteBread Omelette60 recipesOatmeal BreadOatmeal Bread51 recipes