Skip to main content
Main

Bread Pudding with Onions

A savory bread pudding made with bread crumbs, onions, sage, milk, eggs, and seasonings.

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

Why it works: Sage and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,388 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Bread Pudding with Onions

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure. The book gives no cooking times; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Mix the bread crumbs, sage, chopped onions, pepper, and salt in a bowl.

  3. Add the milk and beaten eggs, and stir until well combined.

Bake

  1. Pour the mixture into a baking dish and bake for 25-30 minutes until set and golden brown.

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. Sage + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,388 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  3. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Sage + oniontop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,628 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Bread crumbs
Form the bulk of the pudding and soak up the milk to give body.
Eggs
Bind the mixture and set as it bakes, giving the pudding its firm texture.
Milk
Moistens the bread crumbs so the pudding stays tender as it cooks.
Onions
Add savory flavor and sweetness that deepens as they cook in the pudding.

The step that matters

Baking until set and golden brown. Eggs set as their proteins coagulate with heat, so underbaking leaves the pudding wet in the centre, while overbaking can make it dry and rubbery. Stop when it is firm and lightly browned on top.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Sweet potatofits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, sage, pepper, milk, 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.

You might also like

Brown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesWhite BreadWhite Bread80 recipesBread OmeletteBread Omelette60 recipesOatmeal BreadOatmeal Bread51 recipes