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Dessert

Brain Cakes

Brain Cakes are small, fried cakes made from boiled calf brain, onion, eggs, breadcrumbs, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 68,474 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Brain Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the brain

  1. Wash the brain in salt water, remove the skin and fibers, and soak in salt water until needed.

  2. Boil the brain in a stewpan with enough water to cover it, ¼ teaspoon salt, 1 tablespoon vinegar, onion, peppercorns, and bay leaf for about 20 minutes until firm.

Make the cakes

  1. Cool the brain, chop finely, season with salt and pepper, and mix in enough beaten egg to bind the ingredients.

  2. Cook the mixture over low heat until it thickens, then form into small round cakes.

  3. Coat each cake with egg and bread crumbs, then fry in hot fat until lightly browned.

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. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Onion + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,226 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  4. Pepper + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

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

  5. Onion + breadtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,676 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Calf's brain
Forms the main body of the cakes once cooked and chopped.
Eggs
Bind the chopped brain together and help coat the cakes for frying.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, browned outer coating on the cakes when fried.

The step that matters

Cooking the mixture over low heat until it thickens. Egg in the mixture sets when heated, so low heat thickens it gently and helps prevent it from curdling or becoming tough before the cakes are formed.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Mustardfits better
  3. Cucumberfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, bread, pepper, vinegar. 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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