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Bread Sauce

A creamy milk-based sauce with bread crumbs, butter, onion, cream, salt, pepper, and cayenne.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Hamilton, Margaret · From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,451 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Bread Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Put a pint of milk into a pan with a small onion or eschalot which has three or four cloves stuck in it.

  2. Bring the milk to the boil, then add 2 oz freshly‑made bread crumbs (not made of new bread); add 1 oz of butter broken into small pieces, and let the sauce cook gently for a quarter of an hour.

  3. Then remove the onion, add two good tablespoons of cream, and boil the sauce for a few minutes more.

  4. Season with a little salt, pepper, and a little cayenne.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

70Calories
1 gProtein
6 gFat
4 gCarbs
What these numbers assume: 5 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Cream1 tbsp (15ml) heavy51
Clove1 tsp ground (2g)7
Black Pepper1 tsp ground (2.3g)6
Cayenne1 tsp (1.8g)6
Salt1 tsp (6g)0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

By Hamilton, Margaret. 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. See the original page.

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. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. Cream + peppertop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together21,449 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  3. Clove + creamtop 33% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,810 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-decalactone (peach, creamy).

Cream and pepper barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 21,449 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Bread crumbs (in the method)
Soak up the milk and thicken the sauce to a smooth, spoonable body.
Milk (in the method)
Forms the liquid base that the crumbs swell in and turn into a sauce.
Butter (in the method)
Adds richness and a silky mouthfeel to the finished sauce.
Cream
Adds richness and a smoother, softer texture at the end.

The step that matters

Simmering the crumbs gently. Bread crumbs thicken the milk as they swell and soften. Boiling hard or too long can make the sauce scorch on the bottom of the pan or turn it stiff, so a gentle cook keeps it smooth.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cream, pepper):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Celeryfits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, pepper. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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