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Bread

Poppy Bread

A dry bread made with poppy seeds, figs, dates, St. John's bread, chestnuts, and rice flour, moistened with fruit juice, cream, or egg white.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Chestnut and flour match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 517 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Poppy Bread

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Grind the poppy seeds, figs, date, St. John's bread, and chestnuts together.

  2. Mix in the rice flour.

Shape and dry

  1. Moisten the mixture with fruit juice, cream, or egg white until it holds together.

  2. Roll out the mixture until stiff, then pat with rice flour.

  3. Allow to dry in the sun.

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. Chestnut + flourtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together517 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Fig + chestnuttop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together21 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl pentanoate (yeast, fruit).

  3. Chestnut + ricetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together169 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Fig + breadtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together374 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Fig + ricetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together103 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-hexenal (green, leafy).

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

What each ingredient does

Poppy seeds
Provide the main flavour and the bulk of the dough.
Chestnuts
Add starchy body and a mild sweetness to the mixture.
Rice flour
Absorbs moisture and helps the mixture hold its shape.
Figs
Add natural sweetness and moisture that bind the mixture.
St. john's bread
Adds sweetness and body from its ground pod flesh.

The step that matters

Moistening the mixture. Too little liquid leaves the dough crumbly and unable to hold together, while too much makes it soggy and slow to dry. Add the liquid gradually until the mixture just holds its shape when pressed.

Swap the date

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (poppy seed, fig, bread, chestnut, rice, flour, cream):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Coconutfits better
  3. Raisinfits better
  4. Datethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against poppy seed, fig, bread, chestnut, rice, flour, cream. 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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