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Croustades, or Sweet Tatties a LA Minute

Croustades are bread rings filled with preserve or minced meat.

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 ↓

Croustades, or Sweet Tatties a LA Minute

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the bread

  1. Slice the stale bread into ½ inch thick slices.

  2. Use a small round or fluted cutter to cut out croustades from the bread.

  3. Mark the centers with a smaller cutter, leaving a rim.

  4. Scoop out the insides and fry them in good butter until pale brown.

  5. Drain and dry the croustades well.

Fill and serve

  1. Fill them with hot apple marmalade or warm preserve, or with a good mince of meat.

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. Bread + muttontop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,488 recipes

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

  3. Bread + appletop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,790 recipes

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

  4. Butter + appletop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,706 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  5. Butter + muttontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,781 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

What each ingredient does

Firm stale bread
Its dry, firm structure holds its shape when cut, scooped and fried into a case.
Good butter
Frying in butter browns the bread and adds richness and a toasty aroma.
Hot apple marmalade or any warm preserve
Its sweetness and moisture fill the crisp case and contrast with the fried bread.
Mince of mutton, hare, or any brown meat
Its savory, browned richness fills the case as an alternative to the sweet filling.

The step that matters

Drain and dry the croustades well. Any oil or moisture left on the fried bread will make it soggy and stop it staying crisp once filled. Thorough draining keeps the crust firm under the hot filling.

Swap the apple

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, butter, mutton):

  1. Applethe original
  2. Red currantfits about as well
  3. Figfits about as well
  4. Coconutfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, butter, mutton. 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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