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Bread Dumplings

Bread dumplings made from soaked white bread, broth, butter, eggs, nutmeg, parsley, and flour, boiled in broth.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley 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 Dumplings

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dough

  1. Soak the bread in the broth, then squeeze it fairly dry and beat it with a fork.

  2. Melt the butter in a pan, add the bread, and mix well.

  3. Season with pepper and salt to taste.

  4. When cool, stir in the beaten eggs, grated nutmeg, and chopped parsley.

  5. Mix well and mold into small balls.

Cook and serve

  1. Roll the balls lightly in flour.

  2. Boil them in broth for 2 minutes and serve immediately.

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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Nutmeg + parsleytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,062 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

  5. Nutmeg + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

White bread
Forms the body of the dumplings and absorbs the broth to give a soft, tender crumb.
Eggs
Bind the bread mixture so the dumplings hold their shape while cooking.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, coating the bread for a softer, more flavourful texture.
Broth
Moistens the bread and then cooks the dumplings, adding savoury flavour.

The step that matters

Boil them in broth for 2 minutes and serve immediately.. Dumplings are delicate and can fall apart or become gummy if boiled too long or left to sit. A brief simmer sets the egg-bound dough while keeping it tender.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Nutmegthe original
  2. Capersfits about as well
  3. Marjoramfits about as well
  4. Tarragonfits about as well

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