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.
Use a fork to beat out any lumps in the bread.
Make the soup
Add the prepared bread to the remaining stock and bring to a boil.
Simmer gently for about 10 to 15 minutes.
Season with salt and pepper to taste, then 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
- Soaks up hot stock and softens, giving the soup its body and thickness.
- Stock broth
- Provides the liquid and savory flavour that carries the whole soup.
The step that matters
Soaking the bread until soft. Bread must absorb hot stock fully and rest covered until soft; otherwise lumps remain. Beating with a fork breaks up the starch-bound pieces so the soup turns smooth rather than clumped.
“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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