Name: An English Monkey
Ingredients: 1 cup bread crumbs; 1 cup milk; 1 tablespoon butter; 1 cup cheese, broken into bits; 1 egg, beaten; ½ teaspoon salt; a pinch of cayenne pepper; 1 small piece of baking soda

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 ↓

An English Monkey

Ingredients

Directions

Make the crumb mixture

Soak the bread crumbs in milk for 15 minutes.
Melt the butter in a pan and add the cheese, stirring until melted.
Add the soaked crumbs, beaten egg, salt, cayenne, and baking soda to the pan.

Cook and serve

Cook for 5 minutes, then serve on crackers.

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 + cheesetop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,130 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Butter + cheesetop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together7,962 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Milk + cheesetop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,426 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

What each ingredient does

Bread crumbs: Soaked in milk, they provide the bulk and soft body of the snack.
Cheese: Melts into the pan to give the snack its rich, savory flavor and creamy texture.
Egg: Sets during cooking, binding the mixture together.
Milk: Softens the bread crumbs and adds moisture to the mixture.

“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.