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An English Monkey

A fried cheese bread fritter made with soaked breadcrumbs, milk, butter, cheese, egg, salt, cayenne pepper, and baking soda.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 ↓

An English Monkey

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak the bread crumbs in milk for 10–15 minutes.

  2. Melt the butter in a pan.

Make the cheese mixture

  1. Add the cheese and stir until melted.

  2. Mix in the soaked crumbs, beaten egg, salt, cayenne pepper, and bicarbonate of soda.

Cook and serve

  1. Cook for 5 minutes and serve on wafers.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Bread + cheesetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,130 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Butter + cheesetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,962 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  5. Milk + cheesetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,426 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

What each ingredient does

Bread crumbs
Provides the body of the fritter and absorbs the milk to form a soft base.
Milk
Adds moisture and softens the crumbs so they blend into the mixture.
Cheese
Melts to add rich flavour and a stretchy, binding texture.
Egg
Binds the mixture together and sets as it cooks.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and helps the cheese melt smoothly.

The step that matters

Cook for 5 minutes. Egg proteins set when heated, so cooking too long can make the mixture dry and rubbery. Cheese fats can also separate and turn greasy if the heat is too high. Keep the heat moderate and watch the texture.

“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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