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Brain Fritters

Fried slices of boiled ox brain coated in a flour and egg batter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Brain Fritters

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the brain

  1. Wash the ox brain and boil it in well-seasoned stock for 15 minutes.

  2. Once cooled, slice the brain as thinly as possible.

Make the batter

  1. Mix flour, cold water, dissolved butter or oil, egg yolk, salt, and pepper to make the batter.

  2. Let the batter stand for 2 hours.

  3. Beat the egg white to a strong froth and fold it into the batter.

Fry and serve

  1. Heat fat to 430°F (220°C).

  2. Dip each brain slice in the batter and fry two fritters at a time until golden.

  3. Remove fritters and place them on paper to absorb excess grease.

  4. Garnish with fried parsley and serve.

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

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

  2. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + parsleytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  5. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Ox brain
Forms the main body of the fritter, providing a soft, rich filling inside the batter.
Flour
Forms the batter that coats the slices and sets into a crisp, golden shell when fried.
Egg yolk
Adds richness and helps bind the batter so it clings to the brain slices.
Egg white
Whipped to a froth and folded in, it lightens the batter and makes it puff when fried.
Butter or fine oil
Adds fat that tenderises the batter and helps it brown evenly in the pan.

The step that matters

Folding in the beaten egg white. Whites beaten to a strong froth trap air that expands in hot fat. Folding gently keeps that air in the batter, so the fritters puff and stay light instead of turning dense.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Parsleythe original
  2. Nutmegfits about as well
  3. Capersfits less well
  4. Tarragonfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, butter, egg, pepper. 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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