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Another Bread Sauce

A sauce made by simmering milk or water with grated bread, potato flour, onion, butter, peppercorns, mace, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Another Bread Sauce

Why it works: Potato and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,023 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Another Bread Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. In a saucepan, combine the milk or water with the grated bread, potato flour, pounded onion, butter, peppercorns, mace, and salt.

  2. Bring the mixture to a boil, stirring well.

  3. Remove the spices and blend the sauce until smooth.

Serve

  1. Serve hot.

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. Potato + oniontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

  2. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  3. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  4. Milk + potatotop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

  5. Milk + breadtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Grated bread
Soaks up liquid and thickens the sauce into a soft, smooth body.
Potato flour
Thickens the milk as it heats, giving the sauce body without lumps.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the bread and flour swell into a sauce.
Butter
Adds fat that gives the sauce a rounder, richer mouthfeel.
Onion
Infuses the liquid with savoury flavour as it heats.

The step that matters

Stirring while bringing to a boil. Starches in the bread and potato flour can settle and scorch on the base of the pan or clump if not stirred. Constant stirring keeps the thickener evenly dispersed, so the sauce heats smoothly and thickens evenly.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, bread, potato, flour, onion, butter, walnut):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cinnamonfits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, bread, potato, flour, onion, butter, walnut. 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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