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Bread-and Cheese Porridge

A savory porridge made from beef bones, mutton, bread crusts, and cheese, simmered and blended into a smooth, seasoned broth.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Bread-and Cheese Porridge

Ingredients

Directions

Make the broth

  1. Combine the beef bones, chopped mutton, and onion in a large pot with the water.

  2. Bring to a boil and simmer for three hours.

  3. Cool the broth and remove the fat.

  4. Season the broth with salt, pepper, and parsley, then reheat.

Make the porridge

  1. Add the dried bread crusts and cook slowly until they become jelly-like.

  2. Remove from heat and beat the mixture in a bowl until smooth.

  3. Return the mixture to the pot and simmer for fifteen minutes.

  4. Stir in the butter and cook for an additional five minutes.

Serve

  1. Pour the mixture over the grated cheese in a serving tureen and stir well.

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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

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

  3. Bread + cheesetop 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. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Stale bread crusts
Thicken the broth as they soften, giving the porridge its body.
Beef bones
Release gelatin and flavor into the water during long simmering, enriching the broth.
Coarse mutton
Adds meaty flavor to the broth as it simmers.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, glossy mouthfeel when stirred in at the end.
Grated cheese
Melts into the hot porridge, adding savory flavor and richness.

The step that matters

Cooking the bread crusts until jelly-like. Bread starch thickens as it absorbs liquid and gelatinizes with heat. Cooking slowly keeps the mixture from scorching on the bottom of the pot, and beating it smooth afterward breaks up lumps so the texture stays even.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, mutton, bread, cheese, butter, flour, pepper):

  1. Parsleythe original
  2. Thymefits about as well
  3. Nutmegfits about as well
  4. Marjoramfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, mutton, bread, cheese, butter, flour, pepper. 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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