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 ↓
Fried Bread
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Cut the crusts off the bread slices.
In a bowl, beat the eggs until light.
Add the milk and salt to the eggs and mix well.
Soak the bread slices in the batter.
Fry
In a skillet, heat a mixture of butter and lard over medium heat.
Fry the soaked bread until golden brown on both sides.
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.
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Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together27,232 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Bread + milktop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together11,466 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).
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Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together22,662 recipes
Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).
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Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together118,967 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Eggs
- Bind the batter and set during frying, giving the bread a firm, custard-like coating.
- Milk
- Adds moisture to the batter so the bread soaks it up and stays tender inside.
- Bread
- Soaks up the batter and fries to form a crisp, golden exterior.
- Butter and lard
- Fat for frying that conducts heat and helps the surface brown evenly.
The step that matters
Fry the soaked bread until golden brown on both sides. Medium heat lets the egg coating set and the surface brown before the inside overheats. Too high a heat scorches the outside while the egg center stays undercooked.
“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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