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Breakfast

Parker Toast

A fried bread dish made by battering stale bread and frying until golden, served with syrup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,466 recipes. Both carry 2-undecenal, which smells sweet. The science ↓

Parker Toast

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, mix sour milk, egg, baking soda, flour, and salt to create a batter.

  2. Dip the stale bread pieces into the batter.

Fry and serve

  1. Heat lard or drippings in a pan over medium heat.

  2. Fry the battered bread pieces until golden brown.

  3. Serve warm with syrup for breakfast.

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. Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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

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

  3. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + syruptop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,540 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Milk and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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

Stale bread
Its dry, porous crumb soaks up the batter and crisps when fried.
Sour milk
Its acidity reacts with baking soda to lift the batter and add a tangy flavor.
Egg
Binds the batter so it holds together around the bread pieces.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid in sour milk to produce gas that lightens the batter.
Flour
Thickens the liquid into a batter that coats the bread and sets when fried.

The step that matters

Frying the battered bread. The pan needs enough hot fat at medium heat so the batter sets and browns before it absorbs too much grease or burns. Too cool a pan leaves the pieces soggy and greasy.

“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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