Toast-and-water
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Cut a slice from a stale loaf, preferably a piece of hard crust.
Toast the bread until it is a nice brown on all sides, avoiding burning.
Steep and serve
Place the toasted bread in a jug and pour the boiling water over it.
Cover the jug closely and let it sit until cold.
Strain the mixture before serving.
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
What each ingredient does
- Stale bread
- Toasted crust provides the toasty, roasted flavour that gives the water its character.
- Boiling water
- Extracts flavour and colour from the toasted bread as it steeps.
The step that matters
Toasting the bread to brown on all sides without burning. Browning produces roasted, toasty flavour compounds through the Maillard reaction. Burnt bread adds bitter, acrid flavour that carries into the water, so the bread should be evenly golden brown.
“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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