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Bread Sauce

A savory sauce made from soaked bread crumbs, milk, onion, pepper, mace, and cream or butter, served with game or poultry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,466 recipes. Both carry 2-undecenal, which smells sweet. The science ↓

Bread Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. Combine the bread crumbs and milk in a stew-pan.

  2. Add the onion, pepper, and mace, then bring to a boil.

  3. Stir well and simmer until thickened.

  4. Remove the onion and spices, then stir in the cream or melted butter, or broth if desired.

Serve

  1. Serve as an accompaniment to game or poultry.

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

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  2. Tea + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together738 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

  3. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  4. Tea + peppertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together260 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  5. Bread + oniontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,676 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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 into a thick, smooth body that gives the sauce its texture.
Milk
Soaks into the crumbs and carries them into a thickened, creamy liquid when simmered.
Onion
Infuses the milk with savoury flavour while it heats, then is removed.
Cream or melted butter
Adds fat and richness, giving the sauce a smoother, silkier mouthfeel.

The step that matters

Simmer until thickened. Bread crumbs thicken the milk as they absorb liquid and soften. Stirring and gentle simmering keep the mixture smooth and prevent it from scorching on the base of the pan.

Swap the mace

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against tea, bread, milk, onion, pepper, cream. 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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