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Breading, Crumbs, Etc

A mixture of eggs, oil, water, salt, pepper, and crumbs used for breading foods.

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 ↓

Breading, Crumbs, Etc

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the egg wash

  1. Beat the eggs well in a bowl.

  2. Add oil, water, salt, and pepper to the eggs and mix.

Prepare the crumbs

  1. Rub stale bread through a sieve and dry the crumbs in the oven.

  2. Store the crumbs in a tin box until ready to use.

  3. For better coverage, use at least 1 quart of prepared crumbs.

  4. Mix crumbs with a little melted butter before using.

Bread

  1. Add 1 teaspoon of hot water to the yolk of the egg when breading.

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. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + breadtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,964 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Bind the crumbs to the food and form a coating that sets when cooked.
Oil
Adds fat that keeps the coating tender and helps it brown.
Cracker or stale bread crumbs
Form the crisp, golden outer coating once dried or cooked.
Melted butter
Adds fat and flavour and helps the crumbs brown evenly.

The step that matters

Drying the crumbs. Crumbs that are not dried properly stay damp and absorb moisture from the egg, so the coating becomes soggy instead of crisp. Drying them in the oven removes moisture so they adhere well and brown.

“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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