welcome friends it is Sunday morning so we're going to do another one of our
regular sort of depression-era recipes out of depression-era recipe cookbooks
and today we're working from the Chicago Daily News cookbook and if you've seen
the thumbnail or read the video title you know we're making creamed brains so
these are the brains I haven't cooked a lot with brains I don't eat a lot of
brains so we're gonna see how this works out
I know a lot of people have been complaining that the recipes that I do
from the Depression era don't seem like depression recipes and I think the thing
that you really have to remember is that for a lot of these cookbooks all of the
recipes are aspirational these are the things that people want to eat rather
than what they have to eat and I think this is one of these recipes where
probably there were people that had to eat this so the first step it says to
boil them it doesn't say how long or what to do with them so I've got some
boiling water and in they go okay so I think the brains are cooked but they're
a little bit hot yet I also need to make a white sauce so I'm gonna move on to
making the white sauce and in order to make this sauce it's essentially just a
roux which is butter and flour and once the butter is melted in goes the flour
equal amounts of butter and flour and we just stir that together to cook it a
little bit and what's that cook together nicely
we put in some milk so we need about two cups of milk
okay well just let this cook it will thicken as it cooks now we come back to
the brains we need to chop them up fine and then fry them so they're cool enough
to handle at this point let's chop yeah it doesn't take much to chop them
so in the bottom of this frying pan I'm going to melt a little bit of butter
okay now we fry the brains in the butter until crisp now while you're frying the
brains make sure to keep an eye on your cream sauce your white sauce if it gets
too thick you can thin it out with a little extra milk and if it's lumpy just
get a whisk and whisk it until it's smooth we just want to keep this warm at
this point you reach sort of a consistency that you're looking for and
then turn the heat off while you're finishing the brains that's the way I'm
going to do it because you can't overcook this and make it too thick and
too gloopy and I don't think that'll work out so well so I've got the heat
off on this right now it's going to stay warm and I'm just going to continue to
fry the brains okay I think they're cooked so I'm gonna take them off the
heat and season with salt and pepper a little bit salt a little bit of pepper
stir that in and it says nutmeg I I mean nutmeg goes with all kinds of
things nutmeg always goes with a cream sauce who knew that nutmeg went with
brains so only grate some nutmeg over the
brains in the frying pan still I think that will release some of the oils and
make the flavor just a little bit better on the nutmeg
we'll see stir that in now into the cream sauce which is still pretty warm
but I'm going to turn the heat back on just a little bit I've fried off some
mushrooms ahead of time so the mushrooms go in and then in go the brains
and now this gets served in pastry shells oh my goodness Glenn it is so hot
why are you cooking it's like 37 degrees outside and then
with the humidity they say it's like 43 so 43 degrees Celsius by cooking and
it's hotter in the studio coz look at that temperature gage taught her in the
studio I don't know yes you need that doesn't even give you a wax color that
you should use on your skis okay you should get four clerks and I will
garnish this with peas okay so I get a second Bowl for me I think we're just
gonna taste one off of this plate and that might be sufficient so okay you're
you're concerned full disclosure creamed brains Oh something no that's
just too much that's too much of a dad joke I don't think I can say it uh you
need brains cuz you're cooking in oh yeah so um it's just awful this is
served in puff pastry of olive onsen and at the beginning I said you know a lot
of these recipes are aspirational I think cooking with brains in a cream
sauce is definitely a depression-era sort of people people who use all the
parts you've got you use all the parts you've got in the end these parts tended
at that time to be used by people who were in the lower economic strata I
think putting it in a Bullivant or a puff pastry or it says pastry shell
is the aspirational part yes you would have had this on toast I think it seemed
I think you probably would have put this on toast cream or stale bread and there
that's what the peas go into and that's why the peas and the cream and the cream
would have made the stale bread or the toast
yeah the cream cheese on toast cream salmon on cream salmon on toast yeah
yeah okay so I'm just gonna dig right in I'm not gonna have any of the pastry I'm
just gonna taste the cream in the mushroom so this is where I have to do a
full disclosure cream things and cream things as mushrooms not my favorite
flavor like I don't do the cream peas on toast and the cream salmon and or cream
of mushroom so I'm a little concerned just about the
cream okay how's the texture um I mean take another bite because I don't know
if I got brains or not what you just got mushroom I might have just got mushroom
I mean mushrooms and brains apparently have a texture that's very close how
many brains are in this recipe I got brain that time okay um so you know when
you get it kind of thick get all my I don't my glasses on I can't really see
not have any the flavor I don't know when you get a piece of brain tell me
what you think of the flavor I'm gonna have oh well there's I'll take one at
that is that that's brain okay here you go mmm I heard some in the first one
okay it spilled on the counter it it's kind of like any other type of meat that
takes on the flavor of whatever it's been cooked it's very soft it's it's
very palatable I get a fish flavor to me it tasted like fish I can see that cuz
of the texture cause it's very soft yeah like a fish I mean it's actually even
for the cream part pretty good yeah I mushroom be part it's actually pretty
good so I don't know that this would be my
number one choice why not uh well I think the cerebellum adds great balance
to the flavor really does the circle why not the amygdala makes me want to come
back for more so I guess what I guess what I'm saying is I'm I'm not a fish
I'm not a big fish fish and see where I like this so that's so because I don't
like that strong fish flavor that I'm getting from this I might not come it's
not the fact that it's brains after having it the brains don't bother me it
is that that in the same way I might not have it cuz I'm not a big fan of the
cream Gary but there are lots of options and other things that you can cook with
brains all those types of meats brain heart they're all really all if you're
going to eat meat you might as well you have to eat eat all the other parts cuz
they're perfectly good deed so brains not the easiest thing to come
by I went to three or four supermarkets to find them but I they're out there
these were sheep brains I think all told the most expensive part of this meal by
far was enough pastry so if you were gonna serve this in Depression style you
could have it on toast you have it on toast and it's like a five dollar meal
that would probably feed there's enough here for like four people yeah you had
Spiess clearly we have some carrots yeah I you good to go
well you could make this you could probably fill that with vegetables as
well you could put a whole bunch of vegetables in that and then put puff
pastry crust on top stick it in the oven and handle in a potpie potpie grain
potpie make it your own my friend yeah you know if you're gonna cook with
brains play around with it and a different spicing I mean a little bit of
hot sauce would be great in this I mean there's so many other things yeah dude
it's sort of change that flavor and make it but clearly it's a base ingredient
it's easy to work with yeah it's it takes on whatever flavor
you put in it which means that you can do anything you want with it
you could make it with jerk you could make it with yeah a curry so creamed
brains get kind of a nfe from me but not because their brains and Julie seems to
like them although it's iffy because she doesn't like cream so a cream sauce so
thanks for stopping by see you again soon cool stay cool stay cool yeah I'm
gonna have some juice
you