Why it works: Bread and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 20,964 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓
Bread Soup
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the bread
Break the bread into small pieces and place them in a basin.
Boil the stock and pour enough over the bread to cover it.
Cover the basin and let it sit until the bread is soft.
Beat out the lumps with a fork.
Cook and serve
Add the prepared bread to the remaining stock, boil, and then simmer gently for 10 to 15 minutes.
Season to taste and serve.
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.
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Bread + peppertop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together20,964 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Bread crusts
- Soak up the stock and swell into a soft, thick body for the soup.
- Stock, broth, or pot-liquor
- Provides the liquid and the main savoury flavour of the soup.
The step that matters
Beat out the lumps with a fork. Dry pockets of bread that were not fully softened stay lumpy and uneven. Breaking them up while the bread is wet gives a smooth, even 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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