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Bread Panada

Bread Panada is a sweet beverage made with water, sugar, stale bread crumbs, white wine, lemon, and nutmeg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,318 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Bread Panada

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Combine 1 ½ cups of water and 2 tablespoons of white sugar in a saucepan over medium heat.

  2. Just before it boils, add 2 tablespoons of stale white bread crumbs and stir well.

  3. Let it boil for 3 to 4 minutes.

  4. Add ⅓ cup of white wine, the grated lemon, and a little nutmeg.

  5. Allow it to boil once, then remove from heat and cover until ready to use.

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. Lemon + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. White wine + lemontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,832 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

  3. Bread + nutmegtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,997 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Bread + white winetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together827 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. White wine + nutmegtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,659 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

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

What each ingredient does

Stale white bread crumbs
Thickens the liquid as the starch absorbs water and softens, giving the drink body.
White sugar
Sweetens the drink and balances the acidity of the wine and lemon.
White wine
Adds acidity and fruity flavor to the drink.
Grated lemon
Adds bright citrus aroma and acidity.

The step that matters

Adding the bread crumbs just before the boil. Adding the crumbs too early or stirring poorly can clump them and leave lumps. Stirring them in just before boiling lets them disperse evenly so they soften and thicken the liquid smoothly.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, bread, white wine, lemon):

  1. Marjoramfits better
  2. Thymefits about as well
  3. Cinnamonfits about as well
  4. Nutmegthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, bread, white wine, lemon. 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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