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 ↓
Steamed Bread
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Prepare
Lay the slices of old bread in a pan.
Moisten the bread with a little water.
Add a few bits of butter on top.
Heat and serve
Place the pan in a closed oven at 350°F (175°C) for a few minutes.
Serve warm.
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 + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together27,232 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Old bread slices
- Form the body of the dish, softening as they heat and take up moisture.
- Butter
- Adds fat and richness as it melts over the bread.
The step that matters
Keeping the oven closed. The closed oven traps the steam from the moistened bread, so the slices soften instead of drying out. Opening the door lets the steam escape and can leave the bread dry.
“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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