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Fried Bread, or Sippets of Bread for Garnishing

Small fried bread pieces used as garnish, made by frying stale bread slices in butter and coating with flour and egg white.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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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 ↓

Fried Bread, or Sippets of Bread for Garnishing

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the stale loaf into slices ¼ inch thick.

  2. Shape the slices into diamonds or other desired shapes.

Fry and dry

  1. Fry the shaped bread in fresh butter until pale brown and deeper brown.

  2. Dry the fried bread well.

Arrange and serve

  1. Arrange the pieces alternately around the dish to be garnished.

  2. To adhere them to the dish edge, brush the side with flour and egg white, and let it dry before serving.

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. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  4. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Stale bread
Provides the sturdy structure that holds its shape when fried and arranged.
Butter
Fat that fries the bread, giving it a golden-brown color and rich flavor.
Flour
Forms a dry, starchy base that helps the garnish stick to the dish edge.
Egg white
Acts as a binder that helps the garnish adhere to the dish edge.

The step that matters

Dry the fried bread well. Bread that stays moist after frying will be soggy and will not hold its crisp texture. Thorough drying lets surface moisture escape so the pieces stay crisp.

“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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