Why it works: Butter and bread 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 ↓
Fried Bread
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Prepare
Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).
Melt the butter in a biscuit pan, spreading it evenly.
Beat the eggs in a bowl and add enough milk to soak the bread.
Season the mixture with pepper and coarse sea salt.
Cook the bread
Dip the bread slices in the mixture until moist.
Place the bread in the pan and brown one side.
If the bread is too soft to turn, place it in the oven to brown the top.
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.
Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it
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.
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Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together27,232 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Butter + milktop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Bread + milktop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together11,466 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).
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Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together22,662 recipes
Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).
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Bread + peppertop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together20,964 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Eggs
- Bind the soaking mixture and help the bread set and brown when cooked.
- Stale bread
- Absorbs the egg and milk mixture, giving a soft interior under a crisp surface.
- Milk
- Thins the egg mixture so it soaks into the bread and keeps it moist.
- Butter
- Fat that coats the pan and helps the bread brown in a golden crust.
The step that matters
Dip the bread until moist. Stale bread soaks up the egg and milk quickly. Too little soaking leaves dry patches, while over-soaking makes the slices fall apart in the pan.
“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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