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Caviar Sur Croutes

Caviar on croutons topped with egg yolk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread 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 ↓

Caviar Sur Croutes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the croutons

  1. Cut stale bread into rounds, 1½ inches in diameter.

  2. Melt butter in a saucepan, then pour the clear butter into a frying pan, leaving sediment behind.

  3. Bring the butter to a boil and fry the croutons until pale golden.

  4. Drain the croutons on paper or a sieve.

Garnish and serve

  1. Once cold, spread each crouton thinly with caviar.

  2. Rub the yolk of the hard-boiled egg through a fine sieve and sprinkle it over the caviar.

  3. Serve each crouton on a small round lace paper, about 2 inches in diameter.

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. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  2. Butter + caviartop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together107 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  3. Caviar + eggtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together101 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

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

  5. Bread + caviartop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together65 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Clarified butter fries the croutons evenly to a golden color while adding rich flavor.
Stale bread
Dry, stale bread holds its shape and crisps well when fried, forming a sturdy base.
Caviar
Provides the salty, briny flavor and luxurious topping for the croutons.
Hard-boiled egg yolk
Adds a soft, creamy, mild richness that contrasts with the caviar.

The step that matters

Fry the croutons in clarified butter. Butter with milk solids can burn at frying heat, causing dark, bitter spots. Removing the sediment gives clear butter that browns evenly, and the croutons must be drained well so they stay crisp under the topping.

“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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