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Brain Cakes, or Mock Oysters

Brain cakes are fried hog brain mixtures seasoned with egg yolks, breadcrumbs, and herbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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 Cakes, or Mock Oysters

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Remove strings and bones from hog's brains and wash them carefully.

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, beat the brains with the egg yolks, bread crumbs, pepper, salt, parsley, cream, and flour until well mixed.

Fry

  1. Drop spoonfuls of the mixture into a frying pan with hot lard.

  2. Fry until golden brown.

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. Parsley + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 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. Bread + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,588 recipes

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

  5. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Egg and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 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

Hog's brains
Forms the soft, delicate body of the cakes, giving them their main texture and flavour.
Egg yolks
Bind the mixture together and add richness that helps the cakes hold their shape.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and give the mixture body so it holds together when fried.
Flour
Helps thicken the mixture and supports binding so the cakes hold together in the pan.
Hot lard
Conducts heat to the cakes, producing a crisp, golden-brown surface through browning.

The step that matters

Fry until golden brown. The mixture is soft and binds only loosely, so it can break apart or stay greasy if the lard is not hot enough. Frying at a steady heat sets the outside quickly and drives browning, which also gives the cakes their crisp surface and firm shape.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Parsleythe original
  3. Turmericfits about as well
  4. Tarragonfits about as well

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