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Fried Bread for Garnishing

Fried slices of stale bread coated in flour and egg white, used as garnish.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 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 ↓

Fried Bread for Garnishing

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the bread

  1. Cut the stale loaf into slices ¼ inch thick.

  2. Shape the slices into diamonds or desired shapes using a paste cutter.

Fry and dry

  1. Fry the shaped bread in fresh butter until pale brown and deeper brown.

  2. Dry the fried bread well.

Arrange and attach

  1. Arrange the pieces alternately around the dish to be garnished.

  2. To adhere them to the dish, brush the side that touches the dish with a mixture of flour and egg white, and let it dry before serving.

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 + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  4. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

Butter and flour 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

Stale loaf of bread
Its drier crumb holds its shape when cut and fried into crisp garnish pieces.
Fresh butter
Fat carries heat into the bread, promoting even golden browning and a rich flavour.
Flour and egg white mixture
Egg white and flour form a thin paste that glues the fried bread to the dish.

The step that matters

Fry until evenly browned. Bread browns quickly once its surface sugars and starches heat, so pieces can scorch before the centre is crisp. Frying in butter at a steady heat and removing the pieces at the pale-to-deeper brown stage gives even colour and a crisp texture.

“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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