Name: Indian Egg Bread
Ingredients: ½ cup bread crumbs; 1 pint milk; 2 eggs; 2 cups Indian meal; 1 tablespoon lard or butter; 1 teaspoon salt

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 ↓

Indian Egg 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.

Make the batter

Soak the bread crumbs in milk.
Beat the bread crumbs to a smooth batter.
Beat the eggs until very light.
Melt the lard or butter and stir it into the mixture.
Combine all ingredients and mix well.

Bake and serve

Bake in shallow tins at 400°F (200°C) until golden.
Serve hot.

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.

Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,232 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together11,466 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).
Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together22,662 recipes

Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).
Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together118,967 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs: Beaten eggs add structure and help the bread set and hold its shape.
Indian meal: Cornmeal forms the body of the bread and gives it its characteristic grainy texture.
Milk: Liquid that hydrates the meal and crumbs and softens the batter.
Bread crumbs: Soaked in milk, they add moisture and tenderness to the batter.
Lard or butter: Adds fat for richness, tenderness and a softer crumb.

“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.