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Bread

Bread Dressing

Bread dressing is a savory dish made from soaked dry bread, onion, herbs, suet or rendered fat, and optionally an egg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and egg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 22,662 recipes. Both carry (e)-2-octenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Bread Dressing

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Soak dry bread in hot water until softened.

  2. Chop the soaked bread not too fine.

  3. Mix in chopped onion, herbs, and suet or rendered fat.

  4. Add an egg for improved texture, if desired.

Bake

  1. Bake covered at 350°F (175°C) for about 1 hour.

  2. Uncover and bake until browned.

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 + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  2. Bread + oniontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,676 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. Onion + eggtop 34% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together23,333 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

Onion and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 23,333 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

Dry bread
Forms the body of the dressing; soaking it softens the crumb so it holds moisture.
Suet or rendered fat
Adds richness and a tender texture by coating the bread crumbs.
Egg
Binds the mixture and helps it set with a more cohesive texture.

The step that matters

Bake covered, then uncover until browned. Baking covered first traps steam so the dressing cooks through and stays moist. Uncovering afterward lets surface moisture evaporate, allowing the top to brown through dry heat.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, egg):

  1. Asparagusfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, egg. 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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