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Bread Crumbs

A savory mixture of bread crumbs, flour, beet, leeks or onions, eggs, butter, and optional cream or tapioca, baked or fried into balls.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 ↓

Bread Crumbs

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mixture

  1. Mix the bread crumbs, flour, beet, leeks, onions, or shallots in a bowl.

  2. Rub the butter into the mixture.

  3. Add the chopped herbs.

  4. Combine with 2 beaten eggs or thick cream.

Cook the fritters

  1. Dissolve some butter in a tin.

  2. Add the mixture to the tin.

  3. Bake in a Dutch oven or before the fire.

  4. Add butter occasionally while baking.

  5. When browned on one side, turn it over.

  6. Cook until done.

  7. Serve with brown sauce.

Make the pie

  1. Roll the mixture into small balls.

  2. Place the balls in a pie dish.

  3. Soak the tapioca in ½ pint of water for 10 minutes.

  4. Pour the soaked tapioca over the balls.

  5. Add 3 hard-boiled eggs, cut into small pieces.

  6. Cover with pastry and bake.

Alternatives

  1. These can also be fried as fritters or rolled in egg and bread crumbs before frying or baking until crisp.

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. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  3. Flour + leektop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together328 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Leek + peppertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together965 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Bread crumbs
Form the bulk of the mixture and give the fritters their body.
Eggs
Bind the mixture together and help it set as it cooks.
Butter
Adds richness and fat for browning and a moist interior.
Beet
Adds colour and a mild earthy sweetness to the mixture.
Tapioca
Soaked in water to thicken the liquid poured over the balls.

The step that matters

Turning when browned on one side. The loose mixture needs a set, browned crust before turning. Turning too early can break the fritter apart, while waiting lets the surface firm up and colour.

Swap the leek

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

  1. Leekthe original
  2. Spinachfits about as well
  3. Asparagusfits about as well
  4. Chivefits about as well

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