1,421 easy and fully explained recipes, with 33,930 photos and 78 videos

Cervelle de Canut

In French, this curious name means "silk-weaver's brain", but don't be alarmed, this tasty "brain" consists of cottage cheese mixed with herbs, vinegar and finely chopped shallots.

The Canuts were the silk weavers in the area around Lyon, France. In the nineteenth century this was one of their favourite dishes.

19K 2 3.5

Last modified on: August 1^st 2021

Keywords for this recipe:

For 250 g, you will need:

1 200 g cottage (or curd) cheese
2 2 shallots
3 1 garlic clove
4 chives
5 parsley
6 2 tablespoons liquid cream
7 2 tablespoons olive oil
8 2 tablespoons white (spirit) vinegar
9 salt
10 pepper
Total weight: 350 grams

Change these quantities to make: 250 g 500 g 1 kg 1 kg 500 g

Change measures: Metric

Metric weight Metric volumes

How long does it take?

Time required for this recipe:

Preparation	Resting	Start to finish
21 min.	1 hour	1 hour 21 min.

At what time:

When will I finish if I start the recipe at ... ?
When should I start for the recipe to be ready at ... ?
Work this out...

Step by step recipe

Stage 1 - 1 hour

Thoroughly drain 200 g cottage (or curd) cheese: put in a strainer over a bowl and leave for at least 1 hour.

Stage 2 - 10 min.

Meanwhile, peel 2 shallots and 1 garlic clove. Prepare the chives and parsley.

If you can, pick a few chive flowers as well.

Stage 3 - 3 min.

Chop the shallots and garlic cloves very finely.

Stage 4 - 2 min.

Chop the parsley and chives.

Stage 5 - 2 min.

Transfer the drained cottage cheese to a bowl, add 2 tablespoons liquid cream and beat with a whisk to loosen the cheese.

Stage 6 - 2 min.

Salt and pepper, then add 2 tablespoons olive oil and 2 tablespoons white (spirit) vinegar. Beat again to mix well.

Stage 7 - 2 min.

Add the shallots, herbs and the chive flowers if you have some, and mix these in with a spoon.

Check the seasoning.

Your Cervelle de Canut is ready.

Stage 8

You can enjoy it on fingers of toast...

Stage 9

...as an aperitif snack.

Stage 10

Or as part of a meal with, say, steamed potatoes.

Remarks

The amounts given are for guidance, so do adapt them, a little more of this or less of that, to suit your taste.

The herbs can be whatever you prefer: parsley and chives as here, or chervil and tarragon, which also work well.

Keeping

1 or 2 days in the fridge, covered with plastic film.

Source

Home made.

Nutritional information

Whole recipe
Energetic value	Proteins	Carbohydrates	Fats
612 Kcal or 2,562 Kj	24 gr	22 gr	48 gr
31 %	9 %	2 %	7 %

Per 100 g
Energetic value	Proteins	Carbohydrates	Fats
175 Kcal or 733 Kj	7 gr	6 gr	14 gr
9 %	3 %	1 %	2 %

% are calculated relative to a Recommended Dietary Intake or RDI of 2000 k-calories or 8400 k-joules by day for a woman (change to a man).

Possible allergens in this recipe: Milk, Sulfites

How much will it cost?

For 250 g : 1.32 €

Change currency:

Note: Be careful, these prices are only an estimate, you can consult the table of prices by ingredients used for this estimate.

This recipe uses (among others)

	Cottage (or curd) cheese : You can check-out other recipes which use it, like for example: Frozen cottage cheese with strawberries, ... All
	White (spirit) vinegar: You can check-out other recipes which use it, like for example: Sautéed chicken with leeks, Caesar salad, Red mixed pickle, How to prepare corn salad, Poached eggs, ... All
	Liquid cream: You can get more informations, or check-out other recipes which use it, for example: Baked eggs with chicken and spinach, Caramelized pear custard tart, Cockles and cabbage with smoky cream sauce, Normandy seafood stew, Tatin apples with mascarpone cream, ... All
	Olive oil: You can get more informations, or check-out other recipes which use it, for example: Tomato omelette, Pumpkin and red-bean tortillas, French dressing (vinaigrette), Chicken pie, Roasted vegetables with thyme and green sauce, ... All

Other recipes you may also like

Sausagemeat

Sausagemeat is a mixture of fatty pork (belly bacon here) with leaner meat, all minced and seasoned. In this version I have used veal as the additional meat.
197K3.8 15 min. October 3^rd 2019

Passion fruit jellies

Usually to make fruit jellies or (fruit "paste"), it's like jam but you need to cook fruit pulp and sugar much longer. Unfortunately, this long cooking is bad for both vitamins and flavour. In this recipe we use a special jam gelling agent, to reduce cooking time as much as possible .
320K4 2 hours 30 min. July 4^th 2018

4 pears salad with vanilla

It's a very easy recipe, everything depends on the choice of differents kinds of pears all fully ripe, to give a delicious contrast in the mouth.
217K4.2 37 min. February 21^th 2011

Chocolate mousse

Here is a simple quick recipe for chocolate mousse. It is just necessary to be careful at the final stage, when mixing the melted chocolate and the beaten egg-whites.
466K3.7 40 min. February 21^th 2011

Couscous

In couscous, the meat and vegetable mixture is rather long to cook, but not difficult. And the couscous itself (a kind of coarse semolina) is simple and quick to prepare.
503K4.3 2 hours 36 min. November 16^th 2017

News list of cooking-ez.com

Note: We'll never share your e-mail address with anyone else.

Post your comment or question

Follow this recipe

If you are interested in this recipe, you can "follow" it, by entering your email address here. You will then receive a notification immediately each time the recipe is modified or a new comment is added. Please note that you will need to confirm this following.

Note: We'll never share your e-mail address with anyone else.

Alternatively: you can subscribe to the mailing list of cooling-ez.com , you will receive a e-mail for each new recipe published on the site.