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English Monkey

A creamy cheese and breadcrumb sauce served over toast or crackers.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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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 ↓

English Monkey

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. Melt the butter and cheese together in a saucepan.

  2. Add the bread crumbs, milk, and beaten egg.

  3. Season with salt and cayenne, then cook until thick and creamy.

Serve

  1. Serve on buttered rounds of toast or saltines.

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 + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Cheese + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,130 recipes

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

  4. Cheese + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,962 recipes

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

  5. Cheese + milktop 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

Cheese
Melts into the sauce, adding richness, flavor, and a smooth, creamy body.
Bread crumbs
Absorb the milk and swell, thickening the sauce and giving it body.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the crumbs soak up and the egg enriches.
Egg
Its proteins set as the sauce heats, adding thickness and richness.
Butter
Adds fat that carries flavor and helps the cheese melt smoothly.

The step that matters

Cooking the sauce after adding the egg. Egg proteins set when heated, so cooking over high heat or too long can curdle or scramble the egg. Stirring over gentle heat keeps the sauce smooth while it thickens.

“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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