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English-monkey on Toast

A toasted cracker or bread topped with a crumbly cheese mixture baked until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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 ↓

English-monkey on Toast

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak the bread crumbs in the milk for 15 minutes.

Make the topping

  1. Melt the butter and cheese together in a pan.

  2. Add the soaked crumbs, beaten egg, salt, cayenne, and baking soda.

  3. Cook for 5 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Serve

  1. Serve on toasted crackers or slices of bread.

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 + cheesetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,130 recipes

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

  4. Butter + cheesetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,962 recipes

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

  5. Milk + cheesetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,426 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Cheese
Melts into the sauce, giving it its rich, creamy body and savoury flavour.
Egg
Sets when heated, binding the mixture and giving it a firmer texture.
Bread crumbs
Soak up the milk and thicken the mixture, adding body and a soft texture.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic cheese and promotes browning, while softening the mixture.

The step that matters

Cook for 5 minutes, stirring occasionally. Stirring keeps the egg and cheese from sticking and scrambling unevenly on the bottom of the pan. Gentle heat lets the egg set smoothly into the cheese mixture.

“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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