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Bread, Sauce

A savory sauce made by soaking bread crumbs in milk, cooking with onion and spices, then thickening with cream or butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,466 recipes. Both carry 2-undecenal, which smells sweet. The science ↓

Bread, Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Place the bread crumbs in a saucepan.

  2. Pour enough milk over the crumbs to soak them, plus a little extra.

  3. Alternatively, use giblets, head, neck, and legs of poultry, and stew them to moisten the bread.

  4. Add the soaked bread to the pan with the onion and pepper or allspice.

  5. Bring to a boil, then stir well and let it simmer until thick.

  6. Remove the onion and pepper, then stir in the cream or melted butter, or broth if desired.

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

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  2. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

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

  4. Pepper + macetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,257 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  5. Bread + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,964 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Pepper and mace barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 12,257 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
Absorb the milk and swell into a thick, starchy body for the sauce.
Milk
Hydrates the crumbs and forms the liquid that thickens into a smooth sauce.
Cream or melted butter
Adds richness and a silky mouthfeel when stirred in at the end.

The step that matters

Simmering until thick. Bread starch keeps absorbing liquid and thickening as it simmers, so the sauce can turn stiff or scorch if left too long. Stirring well during the boil keeps the crumbs dispersed and prevents lumps from forming.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Celeryfits better
  3. Nutmegfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, milk, onion, pepper, 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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