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Panada

Panada is a simple bread soup made by boiling sliced bread in water, then seasoning with butter, wine, sugar, nutmeg, cream, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Panada

Why it works: Walnut and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,230 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Panada

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Place the thin slices of penny loaf in a saucepan with 1 pint of water.

  2. Boil until very soft and clear.

  3. Beat the mixture finely with a fork.

  4. Grate in a little nutmeg.

Finish and serve

  1. Add the butter, wine, and sugar.

  2. Add cream and salt if preferred.

  3. Omit the wine and sugar if desired.

  4. Transfer to a deep soup dish.

  5. Serve.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Walnut + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,230 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  3. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  4. Nutmeg + creamtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,920 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  5. Butter + winetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,645 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

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

What each ingredient does

Penny loaf
Forms the body of the soup as it softens and breaks down into a thick mixture.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, rounded mouthfeel to the soup.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the flavour of the bread and nutmeg.
Wine
Adds acidity and aroma to the soup.

The step that matters

Boil until very soft and clear. The bread must be boiled long enough to fully soften and break down; if it is undercooked, the mixture will stay lumpy and will not beat smooth with a fork.

Swap the walnut

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, wine, sugar, nutmeg, cream):

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Chestnutfits better
  3. Pistachiofits about as well
  4. Walnutthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, wine, sugar, nutmeg, 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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