Why it works: Bread and apple are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,790 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓
Toast and Water
Ingredients
Directions
Toast the bread
Cut the crusty bread into a piece about ½ lb.
Toast the bread gently until it is a light yellow color.
Place the toasted bread near the fire until it turns a good brown chocolate color.
Steep and serve
Put the toasted bread in a pitcher and pour 3 pints of boiling water over it.
Slowly toast a piece of apple until it is quite black and add it to the mixture.
Cover the pitcher and let it cool, then strain the mixture before use.
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.
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Bread + appletop 14% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,790 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
- Crusty bread
- Toasting browns the bread, and the toasted bread gives the tea its colour and roasted flavour.
- Boiling water
- Extracts flavour and colour from the toasted bread as it steeps.
The step that matters
Toasting the bread to a deep brown. Toasting builds the colour and roasted flavour of the tea. Stopping at a pale stage gives a weak, bland drink, while over-toasting past dark brown risks bitterness.
“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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