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Bread Stuffing

A savory stuffing made with bread crumbs, onion, parsley, suet, egg, butter, pepper, salt, and water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Bread Stuffing

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Soak the bread crumbs in water until soft, then press out all the water.

  2. Fry the minced onion in some butter until translucent.

  3. Add the soaked bread, chopped parsley, chopped suet, pepper, and coarse sea salt to the pan. Cook for a moment, then remove from heat and stir in the egg.

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. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  3. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Bread crumbs
Form the bulk of the stuffing, absorbing moisture and giving it body once soaked and pressed.
Egg
Binds the stuffing together as it sets slightly off the heat.
Suet
Adds richness and fat, keeping the stuffing moist and tender.
Onion
Adds sweetness and aroma as it softens in butter.

The step that matters

Pressing out the soaked bread. Bread that stays waterlogged will make the stuffing soggy and loose. Pressing out the water lets the crumbs absorb the butter and fat instead, so the mixture holds together when cooked.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Onionthe original

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