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To Make Bread Sauce

A creamy sauce made with bread crumbs, milk, onion, cloves, mace, and cream or butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and mace are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,400 recipes. Both carry methyleugenol, which smells clove, spice. The science ↓

To Make Bread Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Combine grated bread crumbs with enough milk to soak them, adding a little more milk if needed.

  2. Add the onion, cloves, and mace to the saucepan and place over heat.

  3. Bring to a boil, stirring well, then reduce heat and simmer until thick.

  4. Remove the onion and spices, then stir in the cream or melted butter 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. Clove + macetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  2. Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  3. Onion + clovetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,901 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

  4. Bread + oniontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,676 recipes

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

  5. Onion + macetop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together7,078 recipes

    Shared aroma: eugenol (clove, spicy).

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

What each ingredient does

White bread crumbs
Soak up milk and swell as they cook, thickening the sauce into a smooth, body-rich texture.
Milk
Hydrates the crumbs and forms the liquid base that thickens into the sauce.
Cream or melted butter
Adds richness and a silky mouthfeel to the finished sauce.

The step that matters

Simmer until thick, stirring well. Bread crumbs can settle and scorch on the bottom of the pan. Stirring while bringing it to a boil and keeping the heat low while simmering keeps the starch evenly hydrated, so the sauce thickens smoothly rather than lumpy or burnt.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, milk, clove, mace, cream):

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Leekfits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, milk, clove, mace, cream. 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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