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Sweet Bread

A fried meat patty made with butter, flour, egg yolks, spices, and bread crumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread 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 ↓

Sweet Bread

Ingredients

Directions

Make the mixture

  1. Melt the butter in a stew pan over low heat.

  2. Stir in the flour, pepper, salt, and nutmeg until well mixed.

  3. Add the chopped meat and stir until combined.

  4. Let the mixture cool, then add the egg yolks to bind it.

Shape and coat

  1. Shape the mixture into an oblong form.

  2. Dip the shaped mixture into the beaten egg with pepper and salt.

  3. Roll in bread crumbs or powdered crackers.

Fry

  1. Fry in boiling lard until golden brown.

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. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

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

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

Butter
Melted fat that carries the flour and seasonings and adds richness to the mixture.
Flour
Absorbs the melted butter and helps thicken the mixture so it holds together.
Meat
Forms the main body of the bread and gives it its savoury flavour.
Egg yolks
Bind the mixture so it holds its shape after cooling.
Beaten egg
Creates a sticky layer that helps the bread crumbs or crackers adhere before frying.
Bread crumbs or powdered crackers
Form a crisp outer coating that browns when fried.

The step that matters

Let the mixture cool before adding the egg yolks. Egg yolks begin to set when heated, so adding them to a hot mixture can scramble them unevenly. Cooling first lets the yolks bind the mixture smoothly and keeps the shape firm when frying.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, butter, flour, pepper, meat, bread):

  1. Nutmegthe original
  2. Parsleyfits about as well
  3. Capersfits less well
  4. Thymefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, butter, flour, pepper, meat, bread. 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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