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Beignets De Cervelles De Veau

Fritters made from veal brains, seasoned, battered, fried, and served with sauce.

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 ↓

Beignets De Cervelles De Veau

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Prepare the brains by removing veins without breaking them too much.

  2. Season the brains with salt, pepper, and a squeeze of lemon juice.

  3. Cut the brains into small pieces, about 1 inch square.

  4. Dip the pieces in thick fritter batter.

Fry and serve

  1. Heat lard in a deep pan until boiling.

  2. Fry the brains until golden brown, turning to brown evenly.

  3. Remove and drain on paper in the oven.

  4. Serve on a folded napkin or cut paper, garnished with fried parsley and accompanied by sauce.

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. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

  4. Pepper + tomatotop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Parsley + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,398 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Calves' brains
Provide the tender, delicate main filling that is cooked until golden on the outside.
Fritter batter
Forms a thick coating that crisps and browns in the hot lard.
Lard
Conducts heat for deep frying, browning the batter and cooking the brains through.

The step that matters

Frying the brains in hot lard. The lard must be hot enough to set the batter quickly; if it is too cool, the coating absorbs fat and turns greasy before the brains cook through. Turning the pieces lets the coating brown evenly.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, lemon, parsley):

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, lemon, parsley. 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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