Skip to main content
Main

English Monkey

A fried cheese and bread crumb mixture served over buttered crackers.

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

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 ↓

English Monkey

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak the bread crumbs in milk for 15 minutes.

  2. Melt the butter in a pan.

Make the mixture

  1. Add the cheese and stir until melted.

  2. Add the soaked bread crumbs, beaten egg, and seasoning to the pan.

  3. Cook for 3 minutes.

Serve

  1. Pour the mixture over toasted crackers spread with butter.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Bread + cheesetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,130 recipes

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

  4. Butter + cheesetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,962 recipes

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

  5. Milk + cheesetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,426 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Stale bread crumbs
Absorb the milk and bind with the cheese to form a soft, thick mass.
Milk
Softens the bread crumbs and keeps the mixture moist as it cooks.
Soft mild cheese
Melts into the mixture to give it a rich, creamy texture and flavor.
Egg
Sets when heated, helping hold the mixture together.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, and helps the mixture cook smoothly in the pan.

The step that matters

Cooking the mixture after adding the egg. Egg sets with heat, so cooking for too long can make the mixture dry or rubbery, while stopping too early can leave it loose and wet. Stirring keeps it even.

“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 recipesMacaroni and CheeseMacaroni and Cheese102 recipesWhite BreadWhite Bread80 recipesBread OmeletteBread Omelette60 recipes