Why it works: Bread and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 20% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,445 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓
Toast Water
Ingredients
Directions
Toast the slice of bread slightly.
Add the boiling water to the toasted bread.
Sweeten if preferred.
Flavor with lemon or orange peel if desired.
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 + lemontop 20% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together8,445 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Bread
- Toasting browns its starches, creating roasted aroma and flavor that the water picks up.
- Boiling water
- Hot water extracts flavor and aroma compounds from the toasted bread and makes the drink.
The step that matters
Toast the bread slightly. Browning the starches creates the roasted flavor compounds the water will carry. Too pale and the drink tastes flat; too dark and it can taste bitter.
“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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