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Brain Cutlets

Brain cutlets are fried pieces of boiled brain coated in flour, egg, and breadcrumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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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. Wash the brains and soak them in cold water until white.

  2. Parboil the brains in a small saucepan for about 15 minutes until tender.

  3. Thoroughly drain the brains and place them on a board.

  4. Cut the brains into small pieces with a knife.

Coat and fry

  1. Dip each piece into flour.

  2. Roll each piece in the beaten egg.

  3. Coat each piece with bread crumbs.

  4. Fry the coated pieces in butter or clarified dripping until golden brown.

Serve

  1. Serve very hot with gravy.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

Brains
Form the main body of the cutlet, becoming tender when parboiled and firm when fried.
Egg
Binds the flour and bread crumbs to the brain pieces so the coating holds during frying.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden outer crust when fried.
Flour
Gives the egg a dry surface to cling to, helping the coating stick.

The step that matters

Draining the brains thoroughly. Excess water left on the parboiled pieces dilutes the egg and makes the bread crumbs fall off or steam instead of crisping in the hot fat.

“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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