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English Monkey

A cheese bread made from stale bread crumbs, cheese, milk, butter, egg, salt, and pepper, baked on toast or crackers.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter 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 ↓

English Monkey

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak the bread crumbs in milk for 15 minutes.

  2. Melt the butter in a saucepan.

Make the cheese mixture

  1. Add the cheese and stir until melted.

  2. Add the soaked crumbs, beaten egg, and seasoning.

  3. Cook for 3 minutes.

Serve

  1. Spread the mixture on strips of toast or crackers.

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

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

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Bread + cheesetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,130 recipes

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

  4. Cheese + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,962 recipes

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

  5. Cheese + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,426 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Stale bread crumbs
Soaked in milk, they absorb liquid and give the mixture body and a soft texture.
Cheese
Melts into the mixture to provide rich flavor and a smooth, spreadable consistency.
Milk
Softens the bread crumbs and adds moisture to the mixture.
Egg
Binds the mixture and helps it thicken as it cooks.

The step that matters

Cook for 3 minutes. Egg proteins set when heated, so the mixture thickens as it cooks. Stirring steadily while it cooks helps prevent the egg from curdling or scorching on the bottom of the pan.

“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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