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Sauce

Bread Sauce

A sauce made from stale bread crumbs, milk, onion, garlic, salt, cayenne, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

Bread Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Tie the onion and cloves loosely in cheesecloth.

Cook

  1. Cook the bread crumbs, milk, and onion in a double boiler for 30 minutes.

  2. Remove the onion.

  3. Add the seasonings and butter.

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

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

  3. Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  4. Onion + clovetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,901 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

  5. Onion + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 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

Bread crumbs
Absorb the milk and swell, thickening the liquid into a sauce with body.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the bread crumbs soften and thicken in.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smoother, silkier mouthfeel.
Cloves
Release aromatic compounds into the milk, flavouring the sauce.
Onion
Infuses the milk with a mild savoury aroma during cooking.

The step that matters

Cook gently in a double boiler. Gentle, indirect heat lets the bread crumbs absorb the milk and swell evenly into a smooth, thick sauce. Direct high heat can scorch the milk or leave the sauce lumpy and uneven.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Cinnamonfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Clovethe original

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