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Brain Cakes

Brain Cakes are fried patties made from boiled brains, breadcrumbs, eggs, salt, pepper, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Egg and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 118,967 recipes. Both carry decanal, which smells soap, orange peel. The science ↓

Brain Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no cooking times; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare the brains

  1. Soak the brains in cold water for a few hours.

  2. Remove any membranes and rinse well.

  3. Boil the brains in salted water for 10 minutes, then drain.

Form and fry

  1. Chop the brains finely and mix with breadcrumbs, beaten eggs, salt, and pepper.

  2. Form the mixture into small cakes.

  3. Fry the cakes in butter until golden brown on both sides.

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  2. Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

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

  3. Egg + peppertop 33% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together50,580 recipes

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

Egg and pepper barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 50,580 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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 cakes, giving them a soft, savoury filling.
Breadcrumbs
Absorb moisture and give the mixture enough body to hold its shape.
Eggs
Bind the chopped brains and crumbs together so the cakes hold their shape.
Butter
Conducts heat for frying and browns the outside of the cakes.

The step that matters

Frying the cakes in butter. Butter browns at a lower temperature than oil and can burn if the heat is too high. Moderate heat lets the centre warm through while the outside turns golden.

“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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