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Drink

Toast-water

A simple beverage made by steeping toasted stale bread in boiled water, optionally flavored with citrus peel.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and orange are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 19% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,084 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Toast-water

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Toast the bread thoroughly, but do not burn it.

  2. Place the toasted bread in a jug.

  3. Pour the boiled and cooled water over the bread.

  4. Let it sit for 2 hours.

  5. Gently pour off the water from the bread.

  6. Add a small piece of orange or lemon peel to the jug for added flavor, if desired.

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 + orangetop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,084 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

Stale bread
Toasting browns the bread, and its flavor and starches infuse into the water as it steeps.
Orange or lemon peel
Adds aroma from the citrus oils in the peel.

The step that matters

Toast the bread thoroughly, but do not burn it.. Toasting develops browned, roasted flavor, which carries into the water. Burnt bread turns bitter and harsh, so the toast should be deep golden rather than black.

“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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