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Bread Soup

Bread soup is made by simmering bread crusts in stock with onion, seasoning, and parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and parsley are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 25,843 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Bread Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the crusts

  1. Save bread crusts for several days.

  2. Break crusts into small pieces and dry them in an open oven.

Make the stock

  1. Skim soup stock and add an onion; bring to a boil.

  2. Cook gently for 30 minutes, then strain the stock.

  3. Return stock to the kettle and bring to a boil again.

Finish the soup

  1. Add dried crusts and cook slowly for 20 minutes.

  2. Stir and beat bread into a porridge consistency.

  3. Add seasoning and minced parsley, and boil for 1 minute.

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. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  2. Bread + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,588 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. Bread + oniontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,676 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Bread crusts
Dried and simmered, they thicken the stock into a porridge-like texture.
Onion
Simmered in the stock to add aromatic flavour to the soup.
Soup stock
Forms the liquid base that the bread soaks up and thickens.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, parsley):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, parsley. 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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