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
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Slice the stale bread thinly.
Beat the eggs in a bowl and add a little coarse sea salt.
Dip the bread slices in the beaten eggs.
Fry and serve
Fry the bread in hot butter or fat until brown.
Cut the fried bread into cubes and place them in the bottom of a soup tureen.
Pour the soup over the fried bread.
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.
Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it
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).
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Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together22,662 recipes
Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).
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Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together118,967 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Stale bread
- Stale bread is drier and firmer, so it soaks up egg without falling apart and fries crisp.
- Eggs
- Eggs coat the bread and set when fried, adding structure and a golden, tender crust.
- Butter or fat
- Hot butter or fat conducts heat to the bread, browning its surface and adding rich flavour.
The step that matters
Fry the bread in hot butter or fat until brown. If the fat is not hot enough, the egg-coated bread absorbs fat and turns greasy and soggy rather than browning. Enough heat sets the coating quickly and gives a crisp, golden surface.
“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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